




































Book. 


Oojpght N°_ Q^.j 


COPYRIGHT D£P03in 










CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


JBe Sara Mare Bassett 
The Invention Series 
Paul and the Printing Press 
Steve and the Steam Engine 
Ted and the Telephone 
Walter and the Wireless 
Carl and the Cotton Gin 





" Mr. Carl McGregor,” announced he in a stentorian 
tone, frontispiece. See page 62. 




CJjf 3!nbtntion Juries 


CARL AND THE 
COTTON GIN 

BY 

SARA WARE BASSETT 

« 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
WILLIAM F. STECHER 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1924 











O' 


Copyright, 1924, 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 
All rights reserved 
Published September, 1924 




Printed in the United States of America 

SEP 10 *24 

©C 1 A 800773 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I The McGregors. 1 

II Carl Tells a Story.17 

III A Tragedy.31 

IV Problems.45 

V A Tangle of Surprises.60 

VI The Web Widens.71 

VII The Coming of the Fairy Godmother . 79 

VIII The Romance of Cotton.97 

IX North and South.112 

X A Lesson in Thrift.124 

XI A Family Congress.140 

XII A Clue.160 

XIII Hal Repeats His Visit.180 

XIV Spinning Yarns.193 

XV Tidings.219 

XVI A Reluctant Altruist.228 

XVII An Ordeal.237 

XVIII The Solution of Many Mysteries . . 250 

XIX Unraveling the Snarls.259 






















t 




» 








ILLUSTRATIONS 


Mr. Carl McGregor,” announced he in 

A STENTORIAN TONE. 

The cotton is sent to factories to be 

GINNED ” . 

But that isn’t our basket, Mother,” 
Carl said. “This is much bigger ” . 

I’ve hunted for you and your red car 
>> 


Frontispiece 

Page 129 

“ 155 


EVER SINCE 


253 





CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


CHAPTER I 

THE MCGREGORS 


“ Cart ! ” 

“ Coming, Ma!” 

Mrs. McGregor waited a moment. 

“ But you aren’t coming,” protested she fret¬ 
fully. “You never seem to come when you’re 
wanted. Drat the child! Where is he? Carl!” 

“ Yes, Ma.” 

“Yes, Ma! Yes, Ma!” the woman mimicked 
impatiently. “ It’s easy enough to shout Yes, Ma; 
but where are you — that’s what I want to know. 
You’re the slowest creature on God’s earth, I be¬ 
lieve. A tortoise would be a race horse compared 
with you. What under the sun are you doing? ” 

The boy entered, a good-humored grin on his 
face. 

He was thin, lanky, and blue-eyed, and a rebel¬ 
lious lock of tawny hair that curled despite all he 
could do waved back from his forehead. He 
might have been fourteen years old or he might 
have been seventeen; it was hard to tell whether he 
was an overgrown younger boy or an under-sized 
older one. Whatever his age, however, he could 


2 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


certainly boast a serene disposition, for his mother’s 
caustic comments failed to ruffle his temper. 
Having heard them ever since babyhood he was 
quite accustomed to their acid tang; moreover, he 
had learned to gage them for what they were 
worth and class them along with the froth on a 
soda or the sputter of a freshly lighted match. 
The thing underneath was what mattered and he 
knew well that beneath the torrent of words his 
mother was the best mother on earth, so what more 
could a boy ask? 

Therefore he stood before her, whistling softly 
and waiting to see what would happen next. For 
something surely would happen; it always did 
when Mrs. McGregor rolled up her sleeves, and 
they were rolled up now, displaying beneath the 
margin of blue gingham a powerful arm terminat¬ 
ing in a strong hand and slender, capable fingers. 

Years ago she had come to Mulberry Court 
with a large brood of children and it had been a 
long time before she could number one friend 
among her neighbors. The chief complaint en¬ 
tered against her was that she was not sociable, 
and if you were not sociable at Mulberry Court it 
meant you were lofty, uppish, considered yourself 
better than other folks. What it really meant, 
however, was that you did not hang out of your 
window and chatter to the inhabitant of the oppo¬ 
site tenement; or loiter in the doorway or on the 
sidewalk to gossip with the women who lived on 
the floors below. 

At the outset Mrs. McGregor had let it be un- 


the McGregors 


3 


derstood that she had no time for gossip and it 
was this decree that had earned for her the stigma 
of not being sociable, the acme of all crimes at 
Mulberry Court. Of course she had not pro¬ 
claimed her policy in so many words. No, indeed! 
Yet she might as well have done so for the busi¬ 
ness-like manner in which she hastened home from 
market and shot up the stairs published her phi¬ 
losophy more forcefully than any words could have 
done. 

“ She’s just too good for the rest of us,” an¬ 
nounced Mrs. O’Dowd sarcastically to the little 
circle who were wont to await her verdict on every 
newcomer to the district. “ Proud and snappy 
and stuck-up, I call her. Not much of an addi¬ 
tion to the house, if you ask my opinion.” 

This snapshot judgment, hasty as it was, was 
promptly accepted by the other women, for was not 
Julie O’Dowd the social dictator of the com¬ 
munity? Had she ever been known to be wrong? 
With one accord Mulberry Court turned its back 
on the new arrival who so flagrantly defied the 
etiquette of the place. 

“ Indeed had not Mrs. O’Dowd’s baby fallen ill 
the seal of disapproval put on Mrs. McGregor 
might have rested on her all her days, and she 
and her entire family been completely ostracized 
by the neighborhood. But little Joey O’Dowd, 
the youngest of Julie’s flock, was seized with pneu¬ 
monia, and although the flock was a large one Julie 
was too genuine a mother to feel she could spare 
one out of her fold. Was not Joey the littlest of 


4 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


all, the pet of her household? All the mother¬ 
hood in her revolted at the thought of losing him. 
Strangely enough until the present moment she 
had escaped great crises with her children. She 
was well schooled in the ways of whooping cough, 
measles, and chicken pox and could do up a cut 
finger with almost professional skill; but in the 
face of crucial illness she was like a warrior with¬ 
out weapons. 

Overwhelmed with terror, therefore, by the im¬ 
mediate calamity, she did in benumbed fashion 
everything the doctor directed and still Joey was 
no better; if anything he grew steadily worse. 
Motionless he lay in his crib, his great staring eyes 
giving forth no flicker of recognition. There was 
not much hope, the neighbors whispered, after 
they had tiptoed in to look at him and tiptoed out 
again. He was as good as gone. Julie could 
never save him in the world. 

The whispers, humanely muffled, did not reach 
the panic-stricken mother but she was not blind 
to the despairing head-shaking and these suddenly 
awakened her to the realization that according 
to general opinion the battle she was waging was a 
losing one. It was a terrible discovery. What 
should she do? She must do something. Wild¬ 
eyed she plunged into the hall, a vague impulse to 
seek help moving her; and it was just as she paused 
irresolute at the head of the stairs that she came 
face to face with Mrs. McGregor ascending to her 
fifth-floor flat. 

Now Mrs. McGregor was a born nurse, whose 


the McGregors 


5 


skill had been increased by constant practice. 
With a wisdom that amounted almost to genius she 
had brought her large family through many an 
appalling conflict and emerged victorious. Sick¬ 
ness, therefore, had no terrors for her. Instantly 
the mother in her read and interpreted the des¬ 
peration in Julie’s face and without a word she 
slipped through the open door into the room where 
Joey lay. One glance of her experienced eye 
showed that there was plenty to be done. The in¬ 
terior was close and untidy, for Mrs. O’Dowd 
in her distraction had cast aside every consideration 
but her baby. 

Mrs. McGregor stooped down over the crib. 

What she saw there or did not see she at least 
kept to herself, and when she straightened up it 
was to meet the searching gaze of her neighbor 
with a grave smile. 

“ He’s going to die,” moaned Julie, wringing 
her hands. “ He is going to die — my baby — and 
I can’t help it! ” 

Although for a long time the two women had 
lived beneath the same roof, these were the first 
words Mrs. O’Dowd had ever addressed to Mrs. 
McGregor. 

“Might I touch him?” the latter inquired 
gently. 

Like a suspicious animal Julie stiffened jeal¬ 
ously. 

“ I’ll not hurt him,” Mrs. McGregor hastened 
to say, not taking offense at the other’s attitude. 
“ I just want to raise him up so he can breathe 


6 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


better.” Then she added reassuringly, “ I’d not 
give up if I were you. You must keep on fighting 
to the very last minute. There is much we can do 
yet to make him comfortable.” 

“What?” 

“ We can bathe him a little for one thing, if you 
would heat some water.” 

Dumbly Julie turned to obey. 

“ I’ve a big family of my own,” went on Mrs. 
McGregor in matter-of-fact fashion, “ and I’ve 
seen so many children pull through when they 
looked fit to die that I’ve learned never to quit 
hoping. You’ll get nowhere in a fight if you 
haven’t courage.” 

“ I had courage enough at first,” whispered the 
baby’s mother in a shaking voice, “ but I’ve lost my 
nerve now. I’m frightened — and — and tired.” 

Tears came into her eyes. 

“ Of course you are,” came with quick sympathy 
from Mrs. McGregor. “ We all are apt to lose 
our nerve when we are worn out. I don’t wonder 
you’re tired. You’ve had no sleep day or night, 
I’ll be bound.” 

“Not much. The neighbors were kind about 
offering but somehow I couldn’t leave Joey with 
’em. Besides, how can you sleep when you are 
worried half out of your mind? ” 

“ I know! I know! ” nodded the other woman. 
“ Still you can’t go on forever without rest. Next 
you know you will be down sick yourself and then 
where will your baby be — to say nothing of your 
other children. A mother has got to think ahead. 


the McGregors 


7 

Now listen. Would you trust me to watch the baby 
while you curled up on the sofa and got a wink 
or two of sleep? I’ll promise to call you should 
there be an atom of change. Do now! Be a sen¬ 
sible woman. And how would you feel about my 
giving the little chap a drop of medicine? A 
Scotch doctor in the old country once gave me a 
prescription that I’ve tried on both Timmie and 
Martin and it did ’em worlds of good at a time 
just like this. It might do nothing for your child, 
mind. I’m not promising it would. Still, it 
couldn’t hurt him and it might cure.” 

Julie’s dulled mind caught the final word. 
Cure! Alas, she had given up hope that anything 
in the world could do that. The reaction that 
came with the suggestion was so wonderful that it 
left her speechless. 

“ Now see here,” burst out Mrs. McGregor mis¬ 
interpreting her silence, “ use your common sense. 
Do I look as if I had come to poison your baby? 
Why, woman, I love children better than anything 
on earth. They’re a precious lot of bother, there’s 
no denying, and sometimes I get that impatient 
with one or the other of ’em I could toss him out 
the window. But for all their hectoring, and 
their noise, and their dirt — their meddling, and 
smashing, and mending, I’d not be without 
them.” 

While speaking she had been touching the baby 
with a hand so yearning and tender that it could 
not be stayed. She had raised his head, smoothed 
his pillow, straightened the coverings that lay 


8 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


over him. It was amazing how quietly and deftly 
her hands moved. Even the child seemed con¬ 
scious of her healing presence, for all of a sudden 
his wee fingers curled about one of hers and he 
smiled faintly. 

“ See! ” exclaimed Mrs. McGregor, “ the baby 
is not afraid to trust me.” 

“ Nor am I any longer,” put in Julie with eager 
surrender. “ Do as you like with Joey. You 
know better than I.” 

“ Oh, it isn’t that,” the visitor protested, rising. 
“ It is just that it’s sometimes well not to leave a 
stone unturned. You might regret not having 
taken the chance. I’ll slip upstairs and get the 
medicine. It won’t take a minute.” 

“ If you’ll be that kind.” 

The Scotchwoman needed no second bidding. 
She was gone and back again in a twinkling, the 
magic green bottle in her hand. 

“ Now if I might have a cup of hot water,” said 
she. “ I’ve a dropper here. We’ll see what a 
spoonful of this mixture will do for the wee laddie. 
What is his name? ” 

“ Joey.” 

Mrs. O’Dowd’s eyes had brightened and they 
now beamed on her neighbor. 

“ It’s a nice name,” replied Mrs. McGregor, 
beaming in turn. “ I always liked the name of 
Joseph. Well, Joey boy, we’ll see if we can make 
you well. Here, little fellow! ” 

Gently she forced the liquid between the baby’s 
lips. 


the McGregors 


9 


“ Now we’ll sponge him a bit, put on a fresh 
slip, and give him some air! ” 

“ But won’t he — ” 

“ Catch cold? Not if he is shielded from the 
draught. He’ll like the air and feel the better for 
it. It will help him to breathe.” 

Noiselessly she went to work and within an hour 
both Joey and his surroundings took on a different 
aspect. 

“Now,” said she to the grateful mother, “you 
roll up in that comforter and take a nap. Don’t 
worry about the baby. I’ll be right here. Will 
you trust me? ” 

Julie hesitated. 

“ It’s not that I won’t trust you,” murmured she. 
“ But you’re so heavenly kind. Not another soul has 
done for me what you have and I’m a hundred 
times better acquainted with ’em, too. Of course 
I know they have all they can do without taking on 
the cares of others. I’m not blaming them. You 
yourself can’t have much time to spare. Haven’t 
you other things to do? ” 

“ Of course I have,” came with curt honesty 
from Mrs. McGregor. “ I’ve six children and 
they leave me little time for idling. But when I 
do take time away from ’em, I plan to take it to 
some purpose. Just now I have nothing more im¬ 
portant to do than nurse this baby. It’s my first 
job. So don’t be worrying about my work. 
Luckily it is Saturday and Mary, Carl, and Tim- 
mie will look after the little tots and get the din¬ 
ner. I told ’em to when I was there just now. 


10 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


Martin and Nell seldom give any trouble, and 
should James Frederick wake up, one of the boys 
is to run down and tell me.” 

Julie placed a hand impulsively on that of the 
other woman. 

“ I can never thank you,” murmured she 
brokenly. 

“ Oh, don’t be talking of thanks,” Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor interrupted, cutting her short. “ My dos¬ 
ing may do no good and before the day is out you 
may be calling me a meddlesome old harridan. 
Wait and see what happens. I’m not one that sets 
much store by thanks, anyhow. After all, what 
does it amount to but a string of words? If we 
can cure the baby it will be all the thanks I want.” 

If the sentiment the final phrase so modestly ex¬ 
pressed was genuine Mrs. McGregor at least re¬ 
ceived the boon she craved, for as if by magic the 
baby began to mend that very night and before the 
week passed was out of danger and on the high 
road to recovery. Julie’s gratitude was touching 
to see. 

“ ’Twas Mrs. McGregor saved Joey,” declared 
she to every person she met. “ She’s as good as any 
doctor — better, for Joey might have died but for 
her. Should I go through life kneeling to her on 
my bended knees I never could thank her enough.” 

Julie O’Dowd did not go through life, however, 
kneeling before Mrs. McGregor on her bended 
knees; but she did a more practical and efficacious 
thing. Everywhere she went she sounded the 
praise of her neighbor; talked of her kindness, her 


the McGregors 


ii 


wisdom, her unselfishness, until not only Mulberry 
Court, but the area adjoining it began to view the 
gaunt, austere figure from quite a different angle. 
Shyly the women began to nod a greeting to the 
stranger. 

“ It’s just her way to be curt and quick,” ex¬ 
plained they to one another. “ She doesn’t mean a 
thing in the world by it. Julie says she’s sharp 
and prickly as a chestnut burr, but with the sweet¬ 
est of hearts inside.” 

Indeed it was not long before Mrs. McGregor 
proved her right to this generous summary of her 
character. Other neighbors gained courage to 
consult her about their children and in time about 
their troubles in general. 

“ Ask Mrs. McGregor,” became the slogan of 
Mulberry Court. “ She’ll know.” 

And she unfailingly did. She it was who pre¬ 
scribed medicines; gave advice; suggested plain, 
common-sense remedies for every variety of di¬ 
lemma. Nevertheless she wasted no words about 
it. She had no time to fool away, she let it be 
known. Whatever she did had to be done with 
pitiless directness. Often her council was deliv¬ 
ered through a crack in the door or even given 
through the door itself; and there were instances 
when it was shouted through the keyhole. But 
no matter where the words came from they were al¬ 
ways helpful and friendly and the neighbors came 
to understand the manner accompanying them and 
did not resent it. 

Her children understood it too. Mary, Carl, 


12 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


Timmie, Martin, four-year-old Nell, and even wee 
James Frederick (whom Mrs. McGregor unfail¬ 
ingly addressed by his full name) all understood 
and worshipped their quick-tongued mother. To¬ 
gether with the rest of Mulberry Court they also 
had supreme faith in whatever she did and said, 
and were certain that every calamity under the sun 
could be set right if only she were consulted and 
her advice followed. 

And yet loyal as they were, there was one point 
on which neither Carl nor Mary agreed with their 
mother. Of course she was right — she must be 
right; wasn’t she always so? Yet notwithstanding 
this belief they could not but feel that it would be 
a far better arrangement for them to leave school 
and go into the cotton mills where their father 
had worked for so many years. Ever so many of 
the boys and girls they knew worked there. Why 
should they remain in the High School struggling 
with algebra, geometry, history, Latin, English 
and bookkeeping when they might be earning 
money? It seemed senseless. Certainly the fam¬ 
ily needed money badly enough. Were there not 
always endless pairs of shoes to be bought? Caps, 
mittens, suits, stockings, and underclothing to pur¬ 
chase; not to mention food and groceries? And 
then there was the rent. 

Ah, Mary and Carl knew very well about the 
rent, the bills, and all the other worrisome things. 
Even Timmie, who was only nine, knew about 
them; and once Martin, aged six, had startled his 
elders by proclaiming on a sunny May morning, 


the McGregors 


13 

“This is rent day, isn’t it, Ma?” in a tone of 
awe, as if the date marked some gruesome cere¬ 
mony. 

You came to understand about rent day when 
toward the end of the month there were no pennies 
to be had, and you were forced to wait for the shoes 
or rubbers you needed. 

That rent day was a milestone to be dreaded 
even Nell vaguely guessed and when it had passed 
in safety all the McGregors, both big and little, 
joined in a general rejoicing. 

Ma was the magician who accomplished that 
happy miracle. Ma always contrived to accom¬ 
plish everything, so of course she managed rent 
day along with the rest of the wonders she per¬ 
formed. She made no secret, either, of how she 
did it. She sewed! Yes, she sewed for a dress¬ 
maker who sent her marvelous dresses to em¬ 
broider. For Ma was very clever with her needle 
and right out of the blue sky could make the most 
beautiful flowers and figures with colored silks. 
She could also do beading and she was teaching 
Mary how to do it. Already Mary could do quite 
nice embroidery and exquisite plain sewing. 

Ma was very proud of this. 

But what Mary did chiefly when she was not at 
school was to help with the housework so her 
mother would be free to sew. That was the im¬ 
portant thing. Ma must not roughen her hands 
or the silks she worked with would be spoiled. 
So Mary cooked and scrubbed like a real little 
housewife; took care of the younger children and 


14 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


kept them quiet so they would not interrupt their 
mother. 

And between school hours Carl and Tim helped 
also. They built the fires, wiped the dishes, ran 
errands, and brought home any bits of discarded 
wood they found in the streets. In fact, there was 
not one drone in the McGregor hive. Even James 
Frederick had learned to lie in his crib and play 
by himself when everybody was busy. 

It was a happy family, the McGregors. Its 
members, it is true, did not have everything they 
wanted. They never expected that. Those who 
had mittens lacked new caps, and those who had 
caps were often forced to wear patched shoes and 
made-over stockings. Martin’s reefer frequently 
did duty for Nell, and Mrs. McGregor’s cape for 
Mary. However, all that did not matter. They 
were happy and that was the chief thing, happy in 
spite of patched clothing, coats that were out¬ 
grown, rubbers that were either sizes too small or 
dropped off at every step, and shoes that were com¬ 
mon property. The little flat was sometimes hot 
in summer and cold in winter but it took more than 
that to dampen the McGregors’ spirits. 

When they had lentil soup, how steaming and 
delicious it was! When meat stew, what a dish 
for the gods! And who could have asked for a 
greater treat than a thick slice of Mary’s fresh 
bread coated over with molasses or peanut butter? 

Every month a long blue envelope containing a 
check from Uncle Frederick arrived and that, to¬ 
gether with what Mary and her mother earned, 


the McGregors 


15 


kept the household going. But they seldom saw 
Uncle James Frederick Dillingham. He was al¬ 
ways sailing to India, China, or South America. 
Sometimes letters came from him and picture post¬ 
cards showing strange countries and people in for¬ 
eign dress. But the check never failed to make its 
appearance and as it was highly important that it 
should, everybody agreed that since Uncle Fred¬ 
erick could not come himself he was almost as 
satisfactorily represented by this magic bit of blue 
paper. The check brought things and perhaps 
if Uncle Frederick himself had come he wouldn’t. 
You could not tell about uncles you had never 
seen. 

In the meantime the blue paper kept stew in the 
kettle and the shelter of Mulberry Court above 
their heads, and what better service could an uncle 
render his relatives? 

Hence Uncle Frederick’s name came to be men¬ 
tioned constantly in the household. 

“ Remember, Timmie, those are your Uncle 
Frederick Dillingham’s rubber boots and be thank¬ 
ful to him for them,” the boy’s mother would ob¬ 
serve when she brought home the purchase. Or 
“ Uncle Frederick is presenting you with those 
stockings, Carl. See you don’t forget it.” 

And the children did not forget. Gradually 
their unknown uncle came to assume in their im¬ 
agination a form that would have surprised him 
had he been suddenly confronted by it. It was 
that of a benevolent-faced fairy clad in robes of 
purple and ermine, and wearing on his head a 


16 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

crown resplendent with gems of myriad colors. In 
his hand he carried a scepter terminating in a star 
that far outshone the jewels he wore, a scepter all 
powerful to work miracles. He was the good 
angel of the McGregor home, the Aladdin to 
whom they owed all sorts of blessings. 

And yet withal Uncle James Frederick Dilling¬ 
ham was one and the same person who sailed the 
Charlotte to India, China, South America, or some 
other ephemeral port. How paradoxical was this 
dual role, how alluring and how ridiculous! 


CHAPTER II 


CARL TELLS A STORY 

It was April. Already spring was in the air. 
The grass in the parks was turning green, forsythia 
bloomed golden, and boys were playing marbles 
on the streets and sidewalks. Even Mulberry 
Court, shut in as it was, felt the impulse of the 
awakening season. The landlord came, looked 
over the premises, and after viewing the general 
shabbiness became reckless enough to order a 
broken windowpane to be reset, some of the tum¬ 
ble-down ceilings to be repaired, and the fire es¬ 
capes and window frames to be repainted. 

Painting at Mulberry Court was a terrible or¬ 
deal. As there was not an inch of the place that 
was not crowded to the limit of its capacity, paint¬ 
ing meant that milk bottles, improvised ice chests, 
and woodpiles must be put somewhere else; and 
where that somewhere could be was an enigma. 
Furthermore, to add to this difficulty there were 
the children — dozens of them tumbling over one 
another and surging in and out the doors, a fact 
that rendered painting a precarious undertaking. 
Youthful investigators examined the moist pig¬ 
ment; chubby fingers drew hieroglyphics in it; 
while the less curious forgot it altogether and car- 


18 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

ried away on their garments imprints of vermilion 
and black that transformed their otherwise dingy 
garments into robes of oriental splendor. 

Carl McGregor was no exception to the rule for 
wherever calamity lurked he was sure to be in its 
vicinity. 

“ I’d know you’d never rest until you got a patch 
of red paint on yourself,” announced his mother, 
surveying him as he started toward the door. “ As 
if buying you sweaters ain’t enough without your 
leaning plumb up against the fire escape and stamp¬ 
ing a whole decalcomania of red stripes on your 
back like as if you were a convict.” 

“ Is there paint on me, Ma? ” 

“ Is there? I suppose you had no notion of it.” 

“ I hadn’t — honest Injun.” 

“ Well, aside from the fact that you’re barred 
up and down neat as if the lines were ruled there’s 
nothing the matter with you,” returned his mother 
with a faint smile. 

“ Oh, I’m awfully sorry, Ma. Truly I am.” 

“ Sorry? I’ll be bound you are. You are al¬ 
ways a bundle of regrets when it is too late to help 
anything. However, you need weep no tears for 
that sweater needed washing anyway. You’re 
that rough on your clothes that none of ’em keep 
clean more than a minute. I’ll get some gasoline 
and soak it out in the shed and it will be like new. 
Peel it off and give it to me.” 

“ I’m sorry, Ma,” the boy repeated. 

“ It’s no great matter, sonny. Children must be 
children. I’m past expecting them to be grown- 


CARL TELLS A STORY 


i9 

ups,” his mother said kindly. “ If you hadn’t been 
getting into the paint you most likely would have 
been getting into something else. You have a 
genius for such mishaps. I’m glad it was no 
worse.” 

Reassured, Carl grinned. 

“1 do seem to have a good many — ” he hesi¬ 
tated, then added, “ misfortunes.” 

“ Misfortunes, do you call ’em? Sure that’s a 
pretty polite word to apply to the things that 
manage to happen to you,” sniffed Mrs. McGregor. 
“ I suppose it was a misfortune when you tumbled 
underneath the watering cart; and a misfortune 
when you sat down in the wet tar! A misfortune 
when you sent the snowball through the school¬ 
room window; to say nothing of the creamcake 
you treated Jakie Sullivan to that well-nigh killed 
him.” 

“ I didn’t know the creamcake was going to 
make him sick.” 

“No; ’twas just your misfortune. You seem 
to attract adventures like that. Why, if I was to 
let you go into the cotton mills as you are always 
begging to do you’d have every machine there out 
of order in less than a week and yourself hashed up 
into little pieces into the bargain.” 

She had touched upon an unlucky subject for 
instantly, with flaming face, the lad confronted 
her. 

“ No, I wouldn’t. I wish you would let me go 
into the mills, Ma. You might let me try it. 
Ever so many boys no older than I are working 


20 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


there and earning oodles of money. If we had 
more money we could — ” 

“ We could be having an automobile, no doubt, 
and going to Palm Beach winters,” was the grim 
response. “ Well, Palm Beach or not, you’re not 
going into any mill so long as we can keep body 
and soul together without your doing it. You are 
going to get an education — you and Mary too — 
if it costs me my life. I’m not going to have you 
grow up knowing nothing and being nothing. 
Some day you’ll see I was right and thank me for 
it.” 

“ I thank you now, Ma,” declared Carl soberly. 
“ But that doesn’t make me relish Latin and history 
any better.” 

“ No matter if it doesn’t. What you like is of 
no consequence,” Mrs. McGregor announced, with 
a majestic sweep of her hand. “ The chief thing 
is that you exercise your mind and learn how to use 
it. The Latin itself amounts to nothing. It is 
like boxing gloves or a punching bag, a thing that 
serves its turn to limber up your brain. It is learn¬ 
ing to think that counts.” 

Carl’s face brightened. 

“ The teacher was saying something like that just 
the other day,” asserted he eagerly. “ He was tell¬ 
ing us about some of the people who had done great 
things in the world and explaining how long and 
how hard they had to work at them. The in¬ 
ventors, for instance, had to think and think about 
the things they invented. It didn’t just come to 
them all in a minute as I used to believe it did.” 


CARL TELLS A STORY 


21 


Although his mother did not look up from her 
sewing she nodded encouragingly. 

“ There was Eli Whitney,” continued Carl, 
coming nearer. “ I remembered about him be¬ 
cause of the mills here. He invented the cotton 
gin, you know. Mr. Kimball told us that Whit¬ 
ney went through Yale and then started down 
South to be a tutor in somebody’s family without 
any idea of ever being an inventor. But when he 
got to where he was going the people who had 
hired him had changed their minds and found 
somebody else and poor Eli Whitney was out of 
a job.” 

“ A shabby trick! ” 

“ Yes. Still, it was lucky for him, just the same,” 
responded Carl, “ because on the way down he had 
met the widow of General Greene and she was 
sorry for him and asked him to her house. He’d 
just been vaccinated because there was lots of small¬ 
pox in the South and he was feeling rotten. You 
know how sore your arm gets and how sick you 
are sometimes. Remember Martin? Well, any¬ 
how, Mrs. Greene either knew what it meant to 
be vaccinated or else she was kind of ashamed of 
the way her part of the country had treated Eli 
Whitney. Or maybe she was just kind-hearted 
like you. Anyhow she invited Mr. Whitney to 
come to Savannah when she saw how mean he felt 
and the fit he threw at finding himself so far from 
home without money or a job.” 

“ Carl!” 

“Well, wouldn’t you have thrown a fit? I 


22 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


think Mrs. Greene was a peach,” went on Carl, 
passing serenely over the reproof. “ She was 
mighty kind to take a stranger into her house when 
he had no friends.” 

“ Certainly.” 

“ By this time Mr. Whitney had decided to be a 
lawyer and while he was making his home at Mrs. 
Greene’s he began to read all the law books he 
could lay hands on. Then one day Mrs. Greene 
busted her embroidery frame — ” 

“ Did what?” 

“ Oh, you know, Ma,” fretted Carl, at being in¬ 
terrupted. 11 She smashed the thing and — ” 

“ What had that to do with it? ” 

11 Everything; because, you see, Eli Whitney 
mended it so nicely that Mrs. Greene was pleased 
into the ground and thought he was the smartest 
person ever. His father had had a shop at home 
where as a boy he had learned to use tools. But of 
course Mrs. Greene didn’t know that. All she 
knew was that he made a corking job of her em¬ 
broidery frame and so one day when some Georgia 
gentlemen were there at dinner and were telling 
how hard it was to get the seeds out of cotton she 
up and said, ‘You should ask Mr. Whitney how 
to do it; he can do anything,’ and to prove it she 
toted out her embroidery frame to show them.” 

“ Did what?” 

“ Oh, say, Ma, don’t keep bothering me when 
I’m trying to tell you a story,” Carl complained 
peevishly. “ You know what I mean well 
enough.” 


CARL TELLS A STORY 


23 


“ Much as ever,” was the grim reply. 

The lad grinned. 

“ Well, anyhow, the Georgia cotton men talked 
to Eli Whitney, explaining how the cotton stuck to 
the seeds and got all broken to bits when you tried 
to get them out; and how it took nearly a whole 
day to separate a pound of cotton fiber from the 
seeds. And then the cotton planters went on to tell 
how there was lots and lots of land in the South 
where you couldn’t raise rice but could raise cotton 
if it wasn’t such a chore — ” (a warning glance 
from his mother caused Carl hastily to amend the 
phrase) “ such a piece of work to get the seeds out. 
Eli Whitney listened to their talk and after the 
men had gone he thought he’d try to make some 
sort of a machine that would clear cotton of the 
seeds.” 

“ And did he?” 

“You betcha! I mean, yes, he did. Whitney 
was no boob.” (This time Mrs. McGregor failed 
to protest; perhaps she decided it was useless.) 

“ He had, as I told you, made wheels and canes 
and knives and nails in his father’s workshop at, 
home. He had even made a violin. So he wasn.’t 
at all fussed about trying to make a cotton gin. I 
guess he had a hunch he could do it.” 

“A what?” gasped Mrs. McGregor involun¬ 
tarily. 

“ A hunch means he knew he could turn the 
trick.” 

The mother shook her head ruefully. 

“ And me almost killing myself to give you an 


24 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


education!” she ejaculated beneath her breath. 

“ Well, anyway, Ma, slang or no slang, I’d be 
telling you nothing at all about Eli Whitney if I 
hadn’t gone to school, so cheer up,” asserted Carl 
impishly. 

He heard his mother laugh. Mrs. McGregor 
had the good old Scotch sense of humor and when 
her flashing smile came it was always a delight to 
the beholder. 

“ You’re a good boy, Carl, if you do speak the 
language of an orang-outang,” she answered. 
“ Where you pick up such a dialect I cannot im¬ 
agine.” 

“ Oh, it’s easy enough to pick it up, Ma. The 
stunt is not to. Why, what I’ve been saying just 
now is nothing to what I could say if I let myself 
go. I’ve been holding in because of you. I could 
have had you so locoed you couldn’t have under¬ 
stood a thing I meant if I hadn’t been — been con¬ 
siderate. But I know you don’t like slang so I try 
to cut it out. You may not believe it but I do try 
— honest, I do.” 

“ I believe you, laddie,” returned his mother 
kindly. “ It’s hard, I know, with all the other 
boys talking like barbarians. Now go on about 
Mr. Whitney. Did he contrive to make the ma¬ 
chine the Georgia gentlemen wanted?” 

“Yes, siree!” continued Carl with enthusiasm. 
“ Mrs. Greene gave him a room to work in down 
in the basement of her house and he set right about 
the job. Unluckily he had never seen any cotton 
growing because he had always lived in the North, 


CARL TELLS A STORY 


25 


you know. In fact, he had never laid eyes on cot¬ 
ton at all until it was made into cloth, so of course 
he hadn’t much of an idea what he was up against, 
and the first thing he had to do was to scurry round 
and get specimens of cotton with the seeds in it. 
It wasn’t so easy to do just then, either, because it 
was not the season for cotton-gathering and he had 
to hunt and hunt to get some of the last season’s 
crop. I believe he finally got what he needed 
from a warehouse in New Orleans. Anyhow, he 
got the cotton pods somewhere and found out bet¬ 
ter where he stood. And that reminds me, Ma, 
that the teacher told us there were ever so many 
different kinds of cotton; and that the Upland cot¬ 
ton, growing in the South, had green seeds that 
stuck like — like anything to the white part. You 
could hardly separate the two without ruining the 
cotton fibers and you can see that as they were to 
be spun they must not be broken.” 

“ Mr. Whitney did have a puzzle to work out.” 

“ You’ve said it, Ma! He sure had,” beamed 
Carl. “ Well, he kept fussing round, and fussing 
round, and by and by he managed to get together 
a simple sort of contrivance that would do what he 
wanted it to. It was no great shakes of a machine. 
Any blacksmith or wheelwright could have made 
it if he had happened to think of it first. In fact, 
lots of other people did make gins like it. That is 
why Whitney never got rich, the teacher said.” 

“ But didn’t he get his invention patented? ” in¬ 
quired Mrs. McGregor, laying aside the tulle she 
was beading. 


26 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“ Not until it was too late. You see, Mrs. 
Greene was so set up to think Mr. Whitney had 
done the deed she had predicted he would that she 
had to go blabbing all over town how clever he was. 
And the minute people heard that a cotton gin was 
really made that would take out the seeds they came 
begging to see the wonderful machine and find out 
how it worked; and of course Mr. Whitney had 
to show it off. He hadn’t a notion people would 
be so low-down as to snitch his idea and go to mak¬ 
ing cotton gins of their own. But that’s exactly 
what they did do and as soon as Mr. Whitney and 
Mr. Miller who was helping him got wise to the 
fact, they locked the new cotton gin up. But do 
you s’pose that did any good? Not on your life! 
The cotton raisers were crazy to get the machine 
because everybody needed it so badly. On the 
plantations there wasn’t enough work to keep the 
negro slaves busy and it cost a lot to feed them. 
The planters figured that if something profitable 
could be found for them to do they would earn 
their keep. They certainly could not do this pick¬ 
ing the seeds out of cotton because it took them such 
an age to pick enough to make a pound. The 
darkies could gather the crop all right. It had to 
be gathered by hand. What was needed was some¬ 
thing that would take the seeds out and make it 
possible to raise and sell big quantities of cotton. So 
Whitney’s gin exactly filled the bill. It was just 
what the whole South had been waiting for and if 
such a thing existed people were bound to have it. 
Naturally when Whitney wouldn’t show it to them 


CARL TELLS A STORY 


27 

and locked it up, they thought he was almighty 
stingy and some of the meanest of the bunch broke 
into the place where he kept it and carried it off.” 
“Oh!” 

“ Rotten, wasn’t it? They ought to have been 
hung; but they weren’t. Instead, the model of the 
cotton gin got abroad and all the South started to 
making cotton gins until they were all over the 
place.” 

“ I’m afraid Mr. Whitney wasn’t a very busi¬ 
ness-like man,” ventured Mrs. McGregor. 

“ He wasn’t. Most generally inventors aren’t, I 
guess. Still, how was he to know they were going 
to swipe his idea? Of course he and Mr. Miller 
went straight to work and tried to pick up the 
pieces. Mr. Whitney went home to New Haven 
and set about making cotton gins on a larger scale 
than he could make them at Mrs. Greene’s; but 
even then he could not make them fast enough. 
And on top of all his factory burned down and for 
a while he couldn’t make any gins at all. It 
seemed as if hard luck pursued him whichever way 
he turned.” 

“ It certainly did seem so! ” 

“ He and Mr. Miller, who had now gone in as 
his partner, spent no end of money in lawsuits, and 
Mr. Miller got so worn out and discouraged fight¬ 
ing the infringers that finally he died, leaving Eli 
Whitney to carry on the battle alone. And it was 
a battle, too, to get any satisfaction out of the peo¬ 
ple who were making use of his idea. I believe 
that North Carolina and Tennessee did pay him 


28 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


something, and after a while South Carolina and 
Georgia did. In all he received about ninety 
thousand dollars; but the lawsuits he had been 
compelled to go through to get it ate up a good 
slice of the receipts. Besides, some more had to 
go for the factory that got burned and other ex¬ 
penses. So he didn’t get much out of the deal, I 
guess. But the South did. The Whitney gin 
whooped up their cotton trade in great style. 
Every year the planters grew more and more cot¬ 
ton because now that they could get the seeds out 
it paid to raise it, and by and by they were ex¬ 
porting millions of bales. Cotton is now one of 
our biggest exports, the teacher said. We grow 
billions of pounds of it and for the most part it is 
the green seed, Upland cotton, cleaned by a gin 
founded on Whitney’s idea. That’s why I say it 
does you no good to go to school,” concluded Carl. 
“Whitney went through Yale college and in¬ 
vented his cotton gin before he had been out of the 
university a year, and what good did it do him, 
I’d like to know? ” 

“ He did a lot to help the world along, sonny.” 

“ Oh, I suppose he did,” admitted the boy. 
“ But for all that he didn’t get the spondulics. 
That is why I want to go into the factory. So I 
can get some cash to help out here at home. 
S’pos’n we didn’t have Uncle Frederick Dilling¬ 
ham or your sewing money? And anyhow, I 
don’t want you to be always sewing. I want you 
to have pretty clothes, ride round in an automo¬ 
bile, and be a lady! ” 


CARL TELLS A STORY 


29 


“ Oh, Carlie! Can’t one work for a living and 
still be a lady, my dear? ” 

Carl flushed. 

“ Of course she can, Ma. You’re a lady right 
now. Still, I do wish you didn’t have to make 
those silly dresses all the time. Well, no matter. 
You just wait until I get through school. You 
shall be wearing dresses like those and somebody 
else shall be sewing the beads on.” 

A suspicious moisture gathered in Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor’s eyes. 

“ You’re a good boy, Carl,” answered she gently, 
“ even if you do slaughter your mother tongue. 
Now be off with you. All this palaver about Mr. 
Whitney has almost made you late for school, and 
left me hardly knowing whether I am sewing 
frontwards or backwards. Still, it isn’t a bad 
thing to have a son that knows something.” 

It was evident from Mrs. McGregor’s tone that 
she might have said more but for the stern belief 
that she must not flatter her children. Therefore 
to cut short the danger of such a crime she 
brusquely hurried Carl out of the kitchen, merely 
calling after him: 

u Don’t forget to bring home a yeast cake to¬ 
night or you’ll get no bread to-morrow. Put your 
mind on it, now. If you remembered the errands 
I ask you to do half as well as you remember about 
cotton gins and the like you’d save layers of shoe 
leather.” 

It was a characteristic farewell. Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor would not have been Mrs. McGregor had 


30 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


she not uttered it. All this Carl understood and, 
undaunted by the words, he bent to kiss his mother 
on the cheek. 

“ I suppose you wouldn’t have time to stop into 
the Harlings on your way,” suggested she, with a 
twinkle in her eye. 

“ I was planning to stop there a minute as I went 
along.” 

“ I’ll be bound you were. One might as well 
try to keep a fly out of the molasses as to keep you 
away from the Harlings. Well, since you are go¬ 
ing that way anyhow, you can carry over a bowl of 
broth. I made it yesterday a-purpose. Tell Mrs. 
Harling it will only need to be heated up for her¬ 
self and Grandfather Harling.” 


CHAPTER IIJ 


A TRAGEDY 

It was in the corner block beyond Mulberry 
Court that the Harlings lived, and had you asked 
Carl McGregor or his chum Jack Sullivan who 
Hal Harling was you would have received in re¬ 
turn for your ignorance a withering stare, a sigh of 
pity, or possibly no reply at all. Any one who 
did not know Hal Harling was either to be scorned 
or condoled with, as the case might be. Yet each 
boy would have found it difficult to put into words 
who and what this distinguished personage really 
was. 

Hal Harling was the embryo political boss of 
the district; the leader of the gang; the hero of 
every boy who lived within a radius of half a mile 
of the dingy flat on Broad Street. He was a tall, 
jovial-faced, thick-set fellow with the physique of 
a prize fighter and such an abundance of careless 
good humor that it bubbled contagiously from his 
round blue eyes and smiling lips. One would 
have said he was the last person in the world to 
take offence and indeed on first glance one might 
safely have made the assertion. But with this gay, 
happy-go-lucky disposition went a highly devel¬ 
oped desire for fair play which at times suddenly 


3 2 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


converted the balmy, easy-going young autocrat 
into an enemy pitiless and terrible. 

Let some brute stone a kitten; torment a boy 
smaller than himself; snatch an apple from the stall 
of the old woman at the corner and, with a justice 
whose speed was incredible, Hal Harding de¬ 
scended upon the miscreant and pommeled into 
him a lesson in squareness that he did not soon 
forget. 

The fact that the youthful avenger was usually 
on the right side increased, if anything, the number 
of street brawls he was mixed up in, for alas, Mul¬ 
berry Court and all the outlying vicinity teemed 
with so great a multitude of injustices that he who 
set himself to straighten them out found ample 
provocation for continual blows. As he trod the 
narrow streets and alleys this champion of the 
weak encountered one challenge after another with 
the result that it was a common sight in the neigh¬ 
borhood to see Hal Harling the center of an angry 
scuffle. 

Partisanship was instant. A passer-by did not 
need to investigate the broil. Ten cases out of 
eleven the victim of the squabble was getting what 
was coming to him, in popular opinion. 

“ Hal Harling was giving it to him good and 
plenty,” a sympathetic observer would afterward 
relate. “ I don’t know what the fuss was about 
but I didn’t interfere for I’ll wager Hal was right; 
he usually is.” 

Around the standard of such a personality it was 
inevitable that the inhabitants of the community, 


A TRAGEDY 


33 

especially the male ones, should rally; and fore¬ 
most in the ranks of admiring worshippers were 
Jack Sullivan and Carl McGregor, either one of 
whom would willingly have rolled up his own 
sleeves in defense of his idol. They tagged at his 
heels, ran his errands, and walked on air whenever 
they won his commendation. If he called them 
down it was as if they had been rolled in the dust. 

And yet despite the incense burned at his shrine 
Hal Harling kept a level head and an estimate 
of himself that was appealingly modest. In fact 
he was a very human boy with the same love of 
pranks and mischief that delighted other boys. 
He loved a joke dearly. It was fun, for example, 
to let an orange down on a string and dangle it 
before little Katie Callahan’s window and then 
jerk it back out of Katie’s reach when she snatched 
for it. Or it amused him to drop peppermint balls 
through the Murphy’s letter box and hear the chil¬ 
dren inside the room chase them as they rolled 
about the floor. Later he saw to it that Katie got 
the orange and the Murphy youngsters the candy. 
All his jokes were like that, their playful hectoring 
ending in kindness. He was too kind-hearted to 
enjoy causing pain. 

What wonder that such a hero had his satellites? 

On the other hand, he had his enemies too — 
scores of them — for a justice dealer is never with¬ 
out opponents. As a rule these persons were the 
victims of his various avalanches of wrath, those to 
whom at one time or another he had meted out 
punishment and denounced as cowards. For the 


34 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


disapproval of these cravens Hal Harling did not 
care a button. He much preferred they should be 
numbered among his enemies rather than his 
friends and he said so frankly. Nevertheless, his 
mother, timid by nature and of a peace-loving 
disposition, shook her head. 

“ You can’t afford, Hal, to antagonize folks the 
way you do,” she would protest. “ The time may 
come when you’ll be sorry.” 

For answer the giant would shrug his shoulders. 

“ I’m not afraid of anybody,” he would reply 
proudly. 

The statement was not made in a spirit of brava¬ 
do ; rather it reflected the self-respect of one con¬ 
sciously in the right. 

“ But you ought to be more careful. Such peo¬ 
ple are capable of working you harm.” 

“ Let them try.” 

“ But they are. They can do all sorts of under¬ 
handed things you would not descend to,” whim¬ 
pered Mrs. Harling. “ It worries me all the time 
to see you so regardless.” 

“ There, there, Mother! Quit fussing about 
me,” pleaded the big fellow kindly. “ I’m all 
right and can look after myself.” 

“ I know you can when the fight is a fair one,” 
agreed his mother. “ But you never can tell what 
weapon a coward will use.” 

Hal laughed contemptuously and, realizing that 
her counsel had failed of its aim, Mrs. Harling 
said no more. 

Up to the present the calamities she periodically 


A TRAGEDY 


35 

predicted had not occurred and as those who loved 
her son rallied round him with ever-increasing loy¬ 
alty, and those who disliked him kept their dis¬ 
tance, she gradually ceased to protest. What was 
the use of wasting her strength on conditions she 
could not help? Poor soul! She needed every 
atom of energy she possessed to meet the trials 
that beset her own path. 

For Mrs. Harling was a helpless invalid and to¬ 
gether with her bedridden father lived day after 
day imprisoned in the small tenement overlooking 
the rushing, hurrying world of which she was no 
part. Each morning Louise, Hal’s younger sister, 
made tidy the house, packed up a luncheon, and 
the two started for Davis and Coulter’s spinning 
mills where all day they helped to operate the busy 
machinery. It was a noisy, monotonous occupa¬ 
tion; a stretch of dull, wearisome hours, and fre¬ 
quently the boy and girl were so tired at night 
they had scarcely energy to move. And yet they 
toiled at the humdrum task gratefully, rejoicing 
in their wages which not only kept body and soul 
together but provided for the feeble mother and 
the aged grandfather. 

The past winter had been a hard one in Bailey- 
ville, the manufacturing village where they lived. 
Most of the mills were running on half time and 
many of the employes had been turned away for 
lack of work. In consequence worry and uncer¬ 
tainty hung over everybody. Who would be the 
next to go, they speculated. One never could pre¬ 
dict where the axe would fall, or be sure he might 


36 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

not be the victim elected to meet its merciless 
stroke. 

Thus far both Hal and Louise had been retained 
at their posts; but the fear that some of the older 
operatives who had been longer in the employ of 
the company might take precedence over them con¬ 
stantly menaced their peace of mind. 

Corcoran, the foreman under whom they worked, 
was a harsh, unreasonable bully who rather en¬ 
joyed his post as executioner, authority having ex¬ 
aggerated in him all the meannesses that lurked in 
his small, vindictive nature. Only the week be¬ 
fore, Hal, enraged by his discourtesy and injustice 
to one of the women, had blurted out to his face a 
rebuke for his roughness. It was, to be sure, an 
unwise act and one that not only did the poor girl 
whose cause he championed little good but jeopar¬ 
dized his own position; yet to save his soul he 
could not have checked his indignation. 

“ You shouldn’t have said it,” declared Louise, 
who had been an eyewitness of the encounter. 
“ Of course I was proud of you as could be; and 
you said nothing but what Corcoran deserved. 
Still it isn’t safe to do that sort of thing. It may 
lose you your job.” 

“ I don’t care if it does,” returned Hal, whose 
rage had not yet cooled. “ Corcoran may fire me 
if he wants to. But he isn’t going to bully any 
girl as he bullied Susie Mayo — not when I’m 
round.” 

“ But don’t you see, dear; we can’t afford to lose 
our jobs,” continued his sister gently. “ Too much 


A TRAGEDY 


37 

depends on our keeping them. We must have the 
money.” 

“ I’m not worrying,” laughed Hal with confi¬ 
dence. “ If Corcoran should give me the sack I 
could get another place without any trouble, I’ll 
bet I could.” 

“ Places are not so easy to find,” asserted the more 
prudent Louise. “ There are lots of men in 
Baileyville who have been out of work for months. 
You ought not to be in such a hurry to rush into a 
quarrel, Hal.” 

“ I was right; you say so yourself.” 

“ Yes, perhaps so. Still — ” 

“ Don’t you think somebody ought to have called 
Corcoran down? ” 

“ Of course he was unfair and — and rude.” 

“Rude!” interrupted her brother scornfully, 
“ he was contemptible, outrageous! ” 

“ I know it. But — ” 

“ If fewer people stood for brutes there would 
be fewer brutes in the world.” 

“ It isn’t our business to round Corcoran up.” 

“ It is my business to stop any man who is im¬ 
polite to a woman,” replied Hal. “ Besides, Cor¬ 
coran knew well enough he was wrong. You 
notice he did not put up any defense. He just 
walked off and has never mentioned the affair 
since.” 

“ That is what frightens me.” 

“ What do you mean? ” 

“ I’m afraid he isn’t through.” 

“Nonsense! He’s through all right. He 


38 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

hasn’t uttered a yip and it is now over two weeks 
ago that the thing happened. Quit your worrying, 
kiddie. There’ll be no comeback from Corcoran.” 

The reassuring words, so confidently spoken, did 
much to allay Louise’s fears. Uneventfully the 
days slipped by, and with every one that passed the 
boy and girl breathed more freely. Not only were 
they skilled workers but they were earnest and am¬ 
bitious to give of their best. Moreover they had 
behind them an untarnished record for faithful at¬ 
tendance at the mills. Such service, argued they, 
must be of value, and when matched against much 
of the grudging, incompetent labor about them 
should be of sufficient worth to keep them on Davis 
and Coulter’s payroll. All they asked was fair 
play and to be judged on their merits. This de¬ 
mand seemed reasonable enough; but alas, the 
world is not always a just dealer and when on a 
Saturday morning not long before Christmas 
Louise Harling looked into her pay envelope a cry 
of dismay escaped her. 

The fate she had feared had overtaken her. 
Davis and Coulter informed her that after the fif¬ 
teenth of the month, which fell a week hence, the 
firm would not need her services. 

Instantly two thoughts rushed to her mind. One 
was whether Hal had also received similar notice; 
and the other was that all the holiday plans she 
had so fondly cherished must now go by the boards. 
She would have no money to buy presents or a 
Christmas dinner. The holiday season was a 
dreadful time of year to be without a penny. Try 


A TRAGEDY 


39 

as she would to conceal her disappointment her lip 
trembled. 

When Hal met her that night and they started 
home she could hardly utter a syllable. It was 
not alone her own trouble that depressed her. She 
longed and yet dreaded to hear what had befallen 
her brother. Were a calamity like hers to come to 
him then indeed had misfortune descended upon 
the Harling household. How would the invalid 
mother and the feeble old grandfather get on with¬ 
out money? How would medicines be procured? 
Or the rent be paid? 

Hal, however, was to all appearances his serene 
self. He talked and jested quite in his usual man¬ 
ner and if he were keeping something back he 
certainly succeeded in doing so to perfection. 
Perhaps, argued she, he had not been discharged at 
all. If not, why should this disgrace have come to 
her? For in a measure it was a disgrace. When 
you lost your job in the mill all Baileyville knew 
it and discussed the circumstances, weighing the 
justice or injustice of the act. Certainly, thought 
Louise to herself, she had toiled as faithfully as 
she knew how. Had there been fault with her 
work at least she was not conscious of it. It was 
mortifying, galling, to be turned away without a 
word of explanation. 

“ What’s the matter, Sis?” Hal questioned, at 
last noticing that his chatter failed to elicit its usual 
gay response. 

Louise hesitated, shrinking from putting her ti¬ 
dings into words. 


4 o 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“You look as if you’d seen a ghost, old girl,” 
smiled her brother facetiously. “ What’s up? ” 

“ I’ve been — they don’t want — ” 

Hal halted, aghast. 

“ You don’t mean to say they’ve asked you to 
quit? ” 

“ Yes.” 

The boy’s eyes blazed. 

“It’s Corcoran, the cur! He’s done it to get 
back at me for what I said to him.” 

“ You think so? ” 

“ Sure! ” 

“ But why choose me? I had nothing to do with 
the squabble.” 

“ That’s just the point. He’s smart enough to 
know it would hit me a darn sight harder to have 
you lose your job than to lose my own,” blustered 
her brother wrathfully. 

“ I wish I was sure it was only that.” 

“ Why? ” 

“ Because then I wouldn’t care so much. I 
should know there was nothing the matter with 
my work.” 

“ Of course there isn’t. You’re one of the best 
operators they’ve got in the mill. Hines, one of 
the bosses, told me so only the other day.” 

“ Really? ” The girl’s face brightened. “ Why 
didn’t you tell me? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know. Forgot it, I guess,” smiled 
Hal. It was not his way to pass on compliments. 
Had the criticism been adverse he would have told 
it quickly enough. 


A TRAGEDY 


4i 


“ Well, I’m awfully glad he said so.” 

“Yes, it was very decent of him. Everybody 
knows though that you’re a fine worker — even old 
Corcoran himself, I’ll be bound, although he 
wouldn’t admit it. You’re quick, careful, prompt 
and never absent. What else do they want? Oh, 
Corcoran was behind this, all right. It wasn’t 
your work sacked you. It was plain spite.” 

“ I’m thankful for that! ” sighed Louise. 

“ I’m not. It makes me hot,” burst out Hal. 

“ Still, it is better than losing your place because 
your work was so poor you couldn’t hold the job,” 
smiled the girl. 

“ I can’t see it that way. This is just low down 
and unfair.” 

“ But I don’t mind that. I know I wasn’t to 
blame.” 

“ You bet you weren’t. I wish I had Corcoran 
here. I’d shake the daylights out of him.” 

“ Whose daylights are going to be shaken out 
now? ” inquired a laughing voice, and the brother 
and sister turned to see Carl McGregor beside 
them. 

“ Old Corcoran up at the works,” snarled Hal. 
“ He’s given Louise the sack! ” 

Carl did not speak. He knew only too well how 
genuine was this disaster. In the sympathetic si¬ 
lence that followed the three young persons seemed 
to draw closer together. 

“ It isn’t as if Loulie had done anything to de¬ 
serve such a slam,” Hal suddenly declared. “ He’s 
just taking out his spite on me and he’s chosen this 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


42 

means of doing it. To light on a woman! I’d 
a hundred times rather he’d shipped me. But it’s 
like him.” 

Moodily the three walked on. 

“ Of course, I must get some other place right 
away,” Louise said presently, as if thinking aloud. 
“ I don’t know just what. I’ve never worked any¬ 
where but in the mills and I have no other trade. 
To be turned away from Davis and Coulter won’t 
be much of a recommendation for me either, I’m 
afraid.” 

“ Oh, you can get a hundred jobs,” announced 
Hal, with a confidence he did not feel. “ Don’t 
you fret.” 

“ I don’t know.” His sister shook her head. 
“ Scores of Baileyville girls are idle.” 

The statement met with no denial. Who could 
combat it? It was only too true. 

“ Not girls like you,” Carl ventured, determined 
to be optimistic. 

“ Girls exactly like me, Carlie,” smiled Louise. 

“ Oh, you won’t be idle,” murmured Hal. 

u I can’t be — I simply can’t. We’ve got to 
have money.” 

Once again her companions found themselves 
unable to refute the declaration. 

They had turned into the main thoroughfare of 
the town and were threading their way along 
a sidewalk teeming with the throng of Satur¬ 
day shoppers that is such a characteristic part 
of the life of a mill town. The street beside 
them was black with trucks, motor cars, and 


A TRAGEDY 


43 

the congested traffic of a manufacturing center. 

Suddenly there was a cry from Carl. 

“Jove!” exclaimed he. “ Look at that kid!” 

In his horror he put out his hand to clutch his 
friend’s arm. But his fingers closed on empty air. 

Hal Harling was gone! 

What followed happened so quickly that it was 
more like the shiftings of a moving picture than an 
incident in real life. 

Hal bounded into the seething maelstrom of the 
street, caught up a little boy midway in the stream 
of rushing vehicles and held him aloft in safety. 

The baby had obviously been pursuing a small 
black puppy whose dangling leash told a story of 
escape from captivity. Making the most of his 
freedom the dog had run recklessly along and the 
child had dashed after him, too intent on recaptur¬ 
ing his pet to heed whither the chase took him. It 
was little short of a miracle that he had not been 
killed and for his rescue from such a fate he had 
the quick wit of Hal Harling to thank. 

A second later all passing on the street had 
stopped and crowds of spectators surged around the 
young hero. Above the tense stillness could be 
heard Hal’s comforting voice: 

“ Sure we’ll find your dog for you, little chap. 
Don’t cry. You say he’s called Midget. That’s a 
fine name for a dog, isn’t it? See! Somebody 
over there on the sidewalk has him already. We’ll 
go and get him.” 

As the two chubby arms closed about Hal’s neck 
into the center of the crowd catapulted a frenzied 


44 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

nursemaid who madly rushed up to young Har- 
ling. 

“ He’s not hurt a mite,” Hal announced, reas¬ 
suringly. “ I guess he ran away from you, didn’t 
he?” 

“ He was leading the dog and the leash slipped 
out of his hands,” gasped the affrighted girl. 
“ Before I’d a notion what he was going to do he 
was off after the puppy. I’m weak as a rag. If 
anything had happened to him — ” 

“ But it didn’t,” smiled Hal. 

“ No, thanks to you, and to the good Lord! ” 

Then, seizing the child in her arms, she said: 

“ There, Billie, you see what comes of running 
out of the yard after Midget. You might have 
been killed but for this kind gentleman.” 

“ Indeed he might! He would have been. I 
saw the whole thing myself,” broke in a policeman 
who had joined the group. 

“ I’m glad he’s all right,” reiterated Hal, as he 
gave the child into the maid’s care. 

A man approached leading Midget and interest 
being for the moment diverted from himself Hal 
made his escape. 

In a doorway he spied Louise and Carl. 

“ Oh, it was wonderful of you, Hal! ” his sister 
murmured. 

“ It was just lucky,” Hal returned a bit gruffly. 
“ Come on! Let’s get out of this push. We’ll be 
late for supper if we don’t hike along.” 

And it was characteristic of Hal Harling that 
this was the only allusion he made to the adventure. 


CHAPTER IV 


PROBLEMS 

ALTHOUGH temporarily buoyed up by the epi¬ 
sode of the afternoon Carl McGregor returned 
home with spirits at a lower ebb than they had 
been for many a day. To be out of work was a 
very real tragedy in the world in which he lived. 
He knew only too well how indispensable was 
money and that the necessity of it was even greater 
in the Harling home than in his own. The Har- 
lings, alas, had no absent Uncle Frederick to fall 
back upon. On the contrary the entire upkeep of 
their home and family fell upon the young shoul¬ 
ders of the boy and girl who toiled at the spinning 
mills. Now with Louise out of the race Hal would 
be left alone with all the burden, and whether he 
would be able to carry so heavy a one was a ques¬ 
tion. Undoubtedly he would not be forced to 
bear it for long. Louise would find employment 
— she must find it. Did not the need compel it? 
And was she not far too capable a worker to be 
out of a place? Why, scores of people would seek 
her help eagerly when once it was known her as¬ 
sistance was available. 

Sound as these arguments were, however, facts 
did not bear them out. Apparently nobody in 


46 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

Baileyville wished help, no matter how excellent 
its quality. Every night the report from the Har- 
lings was the same — Louise could find nothing to 
do. Even Mrs. McGregor who was ordinarily 
able to straighten out every sort of tangle had no 
remedy for the present pitiable dilemma. The 
only employment it was in her power to secure 
for the girl was fine sewing and Louise, restricted 
by her factory training, could not sew. A week 
went by and still nothing presented itself. Mrs. 
Harling and the aged grandfather, from whom 
the calamity had been kept as long as it was 
possible to conceal it, at length took up the 
worry. 

“ Whatever is going to become of us now? ” 
bewailed each in turn. “ Where’s the food and 
rent coming from? ” 

Hal fidgeted. 

Every day he looked more harrowed and dis¬ 
tressed, and the smile that had formerly come so 
spontaneously came now with an effort. He had 
taken on an extra job evenings, that of delivery 
boy for the local grocer. It did not bring in much, 
to be sure, and it kept him on his feet at the end of 
the day when often he was too tired to stand. 
However, all these disadvantages were lost sight 
of in the few additional dollars derived from the 
makeshift. 

“ Mother says you can’t keep this up, old chap,” 
remarked Carl dismally. “ She says you will be 
getting tired out and sick and then where will you 
be?” 


PROBLEMS 


47 

“ But we’ve got to have the cash, kid! Got to 
have it, don’t you see? It was I who landed us in 
this plight and I’m the one to get us out. It’s no¬ 
body’s fault but mine.” 

Carl sighed. 

“I suppose Corcoran wouldn’t — ” 

“ Take Louise back if I were to humble myself,” 
flared Hal. “ Do you think for a moment I’d ask 
him? Do you imagine I’d gratify him by letting 
him know how hard he’d hit us? Not on your 
life! For all he knows the Harlings are rich as 
mud and don’t care a hurrah for his old job. I 
want him to think that too. If he pictures me eat¬ 
ing out of his hand he’s mistaken.” 

Carl looked grave. 

“ It is all very well to be proud,” affirmed he, 
smiling at his friend’s characteristic attitude of 
mind. “ But sometimes you can’t afford to be too 
cocky. If, as you say, you pitched into Corcoran 
and were wrong — ” 

“ But I wasn’t wrong,” broke in Hal. “ I meant 
every word I said; it was the truth and I’d say it 
again if I got the chance. You’d have said the 
same yourself if you’d been there. The thing 
that got his goat was that it was true.” 

“ But you can’t go round telling people the truth 
about themselves, old man,” observed Carl with a 
wisdom far beyond his years. “ They won’t stand 
for it.” 

“ I’ll bet I would. I’d a darn sight rather a per¬ 
son told me straight to my face what he thought of 
me than whispered it behind my back.” 


48 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ That’s what I’m trying to do now,” grinned 
Carl. 

Young Harling’s lips curved into a smile. 

“ Why, so you are, kid,” returned he. “ I didn’t 
recognize the stunt at first. You’re a mighty white 
little chap, Carl. Maybe I was wrong to light 
into Corcoran as I did. Of course he is my su¬ 
perior and I really had no business to sarse him, 
even if he was wrong. But he is such a cad! It 
made my blood boil to hear him berate that poor 
little Mayo girl — and for something she did not 
do, too.” 

“ I know.” 

“ Well, if you were in this mess what would 
you do? Come now. Give me some of your sage 
advice.” 

“ You don’t suppose you ought to go to — ” 

“Corcoran and apologize?” interrupted Hal 
hotly. “ No, I don’t. I’d starve before I’d do 
that.” 

“ But how about your grandfather, your mother, 
and Louise? ” 

“ I shan’t let them starve, if that’s what you 
mean. You can bet your life on that,” cried Hal. 
“ If anybody goes without it will be myself.” 

“ You seem to be doing it all right.” 

“ How do you know? ” 

“Don’t you suppose I’ve eyes in my head? 
You’re thin as a rail already.” 

“ Huh! That’s only because I’ve been chasing 
round with bundles. I was too fat, anyway; 
didn’t get enough exercise at the mills.” 


PROBLEMS 


49 


“Hal Hading!” 

“Straight goods, I didn’t. Just stood and fed 
stuff into that loom from morning till night. You 
don’t call that exercise, do you? ” 

“ I noticed that by night you were often all in, 
exercise or no exercise,” was the dry response. 
“ Well, you’ve got to go your own gait, I 
guess.” 

“ I’ll bet a hat you wouldn’t go and bow down 
to Corcoran.” 

The thrust told. 

“ Bow down to him? I’d crack his nut! ” 

Hal chuckled with satisfaction at his chum’s 
loyalty. 

“ There you are, you see! ” declared he. “ You 
are every whit as rabid as I am when it comes to 
the scratch.” 

“ I’m afraid I’m more rabid when things hit 
you and Louise,” murmured Carl. 

The two walked on without speaking, the mind 
of each busy with the problem in hand. 

Carl’s imagination circled every mad avenue of 
escape from the Harlings’ financial crisis. If only 
he were rich! If only somebody would suddenly 
leave him some money! If only — his brain 
halted in the midst of its absurd gyrations. 

If he were not rich; if he had no fairy fortune 
to pass over to Hal and Louise, what was to hin¬ 
der him from performing for them a far more 
genuine service of friendship and affection? In¬ 
stead of offering them money that was dropped 
into his hand why should he not test out his real 


50 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

regard for them by earning it? Many a boy his 
age, aye, younger than he, earned money. Why 
should he be free of responsibility when Hal, who 
was only a few years older, was weighed down with 
it? 

Just why it had never occurred to him that if 
he earned money he might with propriety hand it 
over to his own hard-working mother is a question. 
Often with eyes fixed on the clouds we lose sight 
of the things just beneath our noses. Perhaps 
that was the explanation of Carl’s lack of thought. 
Be that as it may, certain it was that he parted 
from his chum afire with the generous impulse of 
making a personal effort to reinforce the Harlings’ 
slender income. 

He was only a stone’s throw from home and what 
led him to turn the other way, pass into Beaver 
Street, and go south toward Orient Avenue he 
could not have told. Possibly he was still thrill¬ 
ing with newly awakened altruism and was not 
yet ready to have his roseate dreams disturbed. 
Or he may have been pondering so deeply how to 
put his impulses into action that he failed to heed 
just where he was going. At any rate before he 
realized it there he was in the fashionable section 
of the village, walking along between rows of 
bare and stately elms and great rambling houses 
glimpsed from behind high brick walls. 

He had not been in this part of Baileyville for 
months. There was nothing to take him there. 
What connection had his life with those fortunate 
lives that made leisure and luxury things to be 


PROBLEMS 


5i 

taken for granted? Even now he started at find¬ 
ing himself in a location so incongruous; or rather 
at finding so incongruous a person as himself in an 
environment so out of harmony with his thought 
and station. 

He whirled about to start homeward and it was 
just at this instant that a trim racing car drew up 
beside him and a man’s voice inquired pleasantly: 

“ Lost your way, youngster? ” 

Carl glanced at the speaker. 

He was a gray-haired, clean-shaven man, with 
fresh color and keen blue eyes. Although muffled 
to the chin in a raccoon coat that almost met the 
fur of his cap there was a splendid vigor about him 
that breathed health, energy, and the rewards a 
temperate life brings. Everything about him 
seemed clearness personified — eye, complexion, 
voice. 

“ I’ve not lost my way, thank you, sir,” Carl an¬ 
swered. “ I just got to thinking and have wan¬ 
dered farther from home than I meant to.” 

“ Are you going back to town now? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Jump in and I’ll give you a lift.” 

Raising the fur robes invitingly the stranger 
reached to open the door. 

Carl was almost too surprised to speak. 

“You’re very kind, sir,” he contrived to stam¬ 
mer. “ I should be glad of a ride. I don’t often 
get one. Besides, I ought to have been at home 
long ago.” 

The honesty of the reply apparently pleased the 


52 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

motorist for, smiling, he tucked the lad in and 
asked: 

“ Where do you live? ” 

“ At Mulberry Court, sir.” 

“ I’m afraid I don’t quite know where that is.” 

“Very likely not. It’s a little tenement house 
off Minton Street. Maybe you never were there.” 

“ I guess I never was,” the man replied simply. 

“ It’s a nice place to live,” continued Carl, glow¬ 
ing with local pride. “ Of course it isn’t like this. 
We’ve no trees. But in winter trees aren’t much 
good anyway; and in summer we can go to the 
parks.” 

To this philosophic observation his companion 
agreed with a nod and they sped on in silence. 

The vast stretches of snow, so unsightly in the 
city’s narrow thoroughfares, were on every hand 
white and sparkling, and each little shrub rearing 
its head out of the spangled fields was laden with 
ermine. 

The boy drew a long breath, drinking in the crys¬ 
tal air. 

“Gee!” he burst out impulsively. “This is 
great. I feel cheered up already.” 

The man driving the car shot him a quiet smile. 

“ I’m glad to hear that,” said he. “ So you 
were out of spirits, were you? ” 

“ I was fussed within an inch of my life,” owned 
Carl with engaging candor. 

“ In wrong somewhere? ” 

“ Oh, I’m not; but my chum is.” 

“What’s the matter?” 


PROBLEMS 


53 


“ Why, you see his sister has just been fired from 
Davis and Coulter’s mills. It wasn’t her fault at 
all, either. Her brother gave the foreman, Cor¬ 
coran, a jawing because he got too fresh with one of 
the girls. Corcoran didn’t say a word at the time 
but a couple of weeks later he took out his spite on 
Hal Harling’s sister, Louise. I suppose he was 
mad and decided on this way to get even.” 

“ Humph!” 

“ Maybe he thought he’d take Hal’s pride down 
and make him come crawling to him on his knees 
to get Louise back into the mills. It is a rotten 
time to be out of work. Louise has tried and tried 
to get another job and can’t land a thing. But 
whether she does or not, her brother isn’t going 
crawling to Corcoran. He’s not afraid of the old 
tyrant. Hal Harling isn’t afraid of anything. 
Why, only the other day he tore into the street 
and saved a little runaway chap from being 
mashed to jelly under a lot of automobiles. The 
baby was chasing a dog and got into the middle of 
High Street before he realized it. He would cer¬ 
tainly have been killed had it not been for Hal.” 

“ Whose baby was it? ” questioned the man be¬ 
side him in an odd voice. 

“ Oh, I don’t know. We didn’t wait to see. 
Hal was anxious to get out of the crowd and we 
were late home anyway. So Harling gave the kid 
to the nursemaid and lit out.” 

There was a muffled: “ I see! ” from his listener. 

“ And where do you come in in all this tangle? ” 
queried the stranger presently. 


54 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“I? Why, you see Hal Harling is my — ” a 
sudden reserve fell upon the lad. It was impossi¬ 
ble to explain to anybody just what Hal Harling 
was to him. “ I chase round with the Harlings a 
lot,” explained he. “ They are almost like my own 
family.” 

“ Oh, so that’s it! ” 

“ I’d decided just now to hunt for a job and see 
if I couldn’t make good the money Louise is miss¬ 
ing. She can’t seem to find a darn thing to do, 
poor kid. She’s been out of work over a week now 
and they’ve got to have money or Mrs. Harling 
and Grandfather Harling will starve to death. Of 
course I’m not so much,” continued Carl modestly. 
“ But I’m willing to work and I’m sure I could 
earn something.” 

The owner of the velvet-wheeled car did not 
speak at once. Then he remarked abruptly: 

“You don’t go to school to-morrow, do 
you? ” 

“ Saturday? Not on your — no, sir.” 

“ Then you’d be free to come to my office to-mor¬ 
row morning and see me, wouldn’t you? ” 

“ Do you think you could give me a job? Sure 
I’d come! ” ejaculated Carl with zest. 

“ Good! Come to the Berwick building, Num¬ 
ber 197 Dalby Street, to-morrow at ten o’clock. 
Give your name and — by the by, what is your 
name? ” 

“ Carl McGregor, sir.” 

“ A fine old Scotch name. Well, you write it on 
a card or a piece of paper and give it to the man 


PROBLEMS 


55 

you will find at the door. Maybe I shall be able 
to do something for you.” 

The car rolled up to the curb and stopped. 

“You’ve been mighty kind, sir,” said Carl, as 
he leaped out. “You’ve brought me nearly 
home.” 

“ Oh, I was going this way anyway,” smiled the 
man in the fur coat. “ You won’t have far to walk 
now, will you? ” 

“ Only a block. I’ll be home in a jiffy.” 

“ You won’t forget about to-morrow.” 

“Forget!” 

Laughing at something that evidently amused 
him very much the stranger started his engine. 

As for Carl, he raced home as fast as ever his feet 
would go. Already he was late for supper, a fact 
always annoying to his mother, who considered 
tardiness one of the most flagrant of sins. To be 
sure he was not often late, for miss what other 
functions he might he seldom missed his meals. 
To-night, however, the table had been cleared, the 
dishes washed, and only a saucepan of corn-meal 
mush, steaming on the back of the stove, remained 
as a souvenir of the feast. 

“ For goodness’ sake, Carl, wherever have you 
been?” asked Mrs. McGregor, as he entered, 
panting from his run up the long flights of stairs. 
“ I’ve been worried to death about you. Go 
wash your hands and come and eat your supper 
right away. You know I don’t like you out after 
dark.” 

“ I know it, Ma,” the boy responded penitently. 


5 6 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ I’m mighty sorry. I’d no idea, though, that it 
was so late.” 

“ Where’ve you been? ” 

“ To walk.” 

“ To walk? Just to walk? Mercy on us! Not 
just walking round for nothing! ” 

“ I’m afraid so, yes.” 

“ Who was with you? ” 

“ Nobody.” 

For an instant Mrs. McGregor looked search- 
ingly at her son. 

“ Well, did you ever hear the like of that! ” com¬ 
mented she, addressing the younger children who 
clustered about their brother with curiosity. 
“ What set you to go walking? ” 

“ I don’t know, Ma. Just a freak, I guess.” 

“ A foolish freak — worrying the whole family, 
delaying supper, and what not. Now come and eat 
your porridge without more delay. Mary, go 
bring the milk; and, Timmie, you fetch a clean 
saucer from the pantry. Martin, stop pestering 
your brother until he eats something; he’ll play 
with you and Nell by and by. Such a noisy lot of 
bairns as you are! If you’re not careful you’ll 
wake James Frederick.” 

Nevertheless, in spite of her grumbling, the 
mother regarded her brood of clamoring young¬ 
sters with affectionate pride. They were indeed a 
husky group, red-cheeked, high-spirited, and 
happy; their chatter, as she well knew, was noth¬ 
ing more than the normal exuberance of childhood. 

While Carl hungrily devoured his big bowlful 


PROBLEMS 


57 


of cereal his mother continued her sewing. She 
was working on a film of blue material a-glitter 
with silver beads that twinkled from its folds like 
stars. Every now and then little Nell, fascinated 
by the sparkle of the fabric, would start toward the 
corner where her mother sat in the ring of brilliant 
lamplight. 

Instantly one of the older brothers or sisters 
would intercept the child, catching up the wrig¬ 
gling mite and explaining softly: 

“ No, dearie, no! Nell must not trouble 
mother. Mother’s working.” 

It was an old, oft-repeated formula which every 
one of the little group had heard from the time 
he had been able to toddle. Familiar, too, was the 
picture of their mother seated in the circle of light, 
her basket of gayly hued spools beside her, and a 
cloud of shimmering splendor wreathing her feet. 
Sometimes this glory was pink; sometimes it was 
blue, lavender, or yellow; not infrequently it was 
black or a smoky mist of gray. The children al¬ 
ways delighted in the brighter colors, crowding 
round with eagerness whenever a new gown was 
brought home to see what hue the exciting parcel 
might contain. 

“ Oh, nothing but a sleepy old gray one this 
time! ” Timmie would bewail. “ And gray beads, 
too! Do hurry up, Ma, and get it done so we can 
have something else.” 

But let the paper disclose a brilliant blue or a 
red tulle and instantly every child clapped his 
hands. 


58 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

Exultantly they examined the scintillating jet 
or iridescent sequins. 

“ Oh, this is the best yet, Ma! ” Carl would cry. 
“ It’s a peach of a dress.” 

Their ingenious admiration did much to trans¬ 
form their mother’s tedious task into a fine art and 
helped her to regard it with dignity. Certainly its 
influence on the characters of her children was in¬ 
estimable. Not alone did it answer their craving 
for beauty, but far better than this aesthetic grati¬ 
fication was the education it gave them in thought¬ 
fulness and unselfishness. Consideration for their 
mother, restraint, independence, all emerged out of 
the yards of foolish gauze and the frivolous span¬ 
gles. 

Therefore Mrs. McGregor sewed on serene in 
spirit and if, as to-night, her task barred her from 
secrets her children might amid greater leisure 
have bestowed on her, the circumstance was ac¬ 
cepted as one of the unavoidable disadvantages at¬ 
tending constant occupation. 

It was regrettable she had not more time to talk 
with her sons and daughters separately. Confi¬ 
dences were shy and volatile things that could not 
be delivered in a hurry or hastily fitted into the 
chinks of a busy day. Confidences depended on 
mood and could not be regulated so that they 
would be forthcoming in the few seconds snatched 
between one duty and another. 

As a result it came about that after Carl had 
swallowed his supper, frolicked with the younger 
children and helped Mary put them to bed, 


PROBLEMS 


59 


brought in the kindlings and coal for the morning 
fire, it was time for him to tumble in between the 
sheets himself, and he did so without mentioning 
to his mother or any one else his adventures of the 
afternoon or his morrow’s appointment with the 
stranger. 

One does not always wish to relate his affairs 
before five small brothers and sisters whose little 
ears drink in the story and whose tiny tongues are 
liable artlessly to repeat it. 

In the McGregor household there was affection 
and happiness; but, alas, there was no such thing as 
privacy. 


CHAPTER V 


A TANGLE OF SURPRISES 

MORNING, to which Carl had looked forward 
for a moment with his mother, brought, alas, even 
more meager opportunity for imparting secrets 
than had the night before, for as was the custom 
of the McGregor family the new day was launched 
amid a turmoil of confusion. Hence it came about 
that although Carl made several valiant attempts 
to waylay his mother in the pantry, or corral her in 
her room, he was each time thwarted and was never 
able to get beyond a vague introduction to the 
topic so near his heart. At length a multitudinous 
list of errands to the butcher, grocer, and baker 
was handed him and there was no alternative but 
catch up his hat and coat and speed forth upon 
these commissions. And no sooner were they all 
fulfilled than the hour for his appointment with the 
stranger arrived and, palpitating with the interest 
of his mission, he set forth to the address to which 
he had been directed. 

It was in the down-town part of the village and 
so busy was he dodging trucks and hurrying pedes¬ 
trians that he paid scant heed to anything but the 
gilt numbers that dotted the street. In and out 
the crowd he wove his way until above a doorway 


A TANGLE OF SURPRISES 


61 


the magic characters he sought stared at him. 

There may have been, and probably were, signs 
announcing the nature of the business in which this 
mysterious friend was engaged but if so Carl was 
blind to them. All that concerned him was to find 
the place that sheltered his remarkable acquaint¬ 
ance and ascertain the sequel of the day before. 

Therefore he walked timidly into the hallway 
and seeing at the other end of it an oaken door 
panelled with ground glass that bore the hiero¬ 
glyphics of his quest he turned the heavy brass knob 
and walked in. 

The room was spacious and its rich furnishings 
and atmosphere of stillness were in such marked 
contrast to the hubbub of the street that he paused 
on the heavy rug, abashed. There was, however, 
no time for retreat even had his courage failed*him 
for the door behind him had no sooner clicked to¬ 
gether than a boy in a gray uniform came forward. 
As he approached his eye swept with disapproval 
the shabby visitor and he said, with an edge of 
sharpness crisping his tone: 

“ What can I do for you? ” 

“ I want to see a — a — gentleman,” stammered 
Carl. “ I don’t know his name. I forgot to ask 
it. But he told me to come to this number to-day 
at ten o’clock and give him my name on a piece 
of paper. I’ve got it here somewheres.” 

Awkwardly he searched his pockets, the waiting 
messenger watching his every movement. 

It was a grimy morsel of parchment that was at 
length produced; but the instant the supercilious 


6 2 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


page read the name scrawled upon it his attitude 
changed from superiority to servility. 

“ This way, sir, if you please,” said he, wheeling 
about. 

Carl followed his guide, feeling, as he tagged 
across the silencing rug, deplorably small, and 
painfully conscious of both his hands and feet. He 
and his conductor passed through another door, 
threaded labyrinthian aisles flanked by gaping 
clerks and faintly smiling stenographers, and came 
at length to a third door which the youth preceding 
him opened with a flourish. 

“ Mr. Carl McGregor,” announced he in a sten¬ 
torian tone. 

All the blood in Carl’s body rushed to his face. 

The room before him was small and on its 
warmly tinted walls a few pictures, some of which 
his school training led him to recognize as Rem¬ 
brandt reproductions, lent charm and interest to the 
interior. But these details were of minor impor¬ 
tance compared to the thrill he experienced at dis¬ 
covering behind a great mahogany desk the mys¬ 
terious stranger of his motoring adventure. 

Yes, it was he — there could be no question about 
that. And yet, now that his hat and heavy fur 
coat were removed he appeared surprisingly slen¬ 
der and youthful. His eyes, too, seemed bluer, his 
cheeks redder, and his mouth more smiling. 

“ Well, shaver, you’re prompt,” announced he, 
pointing to the clock with evident satisfaction. 

“ You said ten, sir.” 

u So I did. Nevertheless, I often say ten and 


A TANGLE OF SURPRISES 63 

get quarter past ten or even eleven o’clock. Sit 
down.” 

He motioned toward a huge leather chair at his 
elbow and slipping into it the boy perched with 
anticipation on its forward edge. 

“ Well, what about that Miss Harling we were 
talking of yesterday? Has she a position yet? ” 

“ Since last night, you mean? I don’t know, sir. 
I haven’t seen any of the Harlings to-day. But I 
hardly think so.” 

The stranger pursed his lips. 

“ Too bad! Too bad! ” he murmured. “ And 
you are still for helping the family out by taking a 
job, are you? ” 

“ If I can get one; yes, sir.” 

“ Just what kind of work had you in mind? ” 

“ Why— I — I — hadn’t thought about it.” 

“ I suppose you go to school.” 

“Yes, sir. That’s the dickens of it. My 
mother makes me. I’d a great deal rather go into 
Davis and Coulter’s cotton mills. Lots of boys 
and girls my age do go there, and that is where my 
father worked before he died. But Ma is hot on 
education. She says I’ve got to have one, and she 
insists on sewing at home on all sorts of fool flum¬ 
meries for some dressmaker so I can. It’s rotten 
of me not to be more pleased about it, I suppose.” 

While Carl fumbled with his cap the man at the 
desk tilted back in his chair, regarding him nar¬ 
rowly. 

“ Your school work can’t leave you very much 
time for anything else,” remarked he. 


64 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ Oh, yes, it does,” the lad hastened to retort. 
“ I have Saturdays and — and — spare hours at 
night. I’d even work Sundays if there was any¬ 
thing I could do.” 

“ At that rate I am afraid you would not find 
much time for skating or baseball. People have 
to have fresh air and exercise, you know, to keep 
well.” 

“ I don’t have to play,” protested Carl with great 
earnestness. “ Anyhow I get heaps of exercise and 
fresh air doing errands. Besides, we live up five 
flights.” 

His listener turned aside his head. 

“ If it comes to exercise I get all I want right at 
home,” persisted the boy. “ I’ve a crew of little 
brothers and sisters, too, and when I’m not busy I 
help take care of them so Ma can sew. Just you 
try doing it once if you are looking for exercise. 
And then I wheel the baby out.” 

There was a twinkle in the eye of the man at 
the desk but he said gravely: 

“ Isn’t it going to bother them at home if you 
take a position? How does your mother feel about 
it?” 

“ I haven’t had a chance to ask her,” Carl blurted 
out with honesty. “ All last evening she was 
rushing to finish that spangled thing; and this 
morning she had the kids to dress and I had 
errands to do. It’s awful hard to get a chance 
to talk to Ma by herself. Some of the children 
are always clawing at her skirts and bothering 
her.” 


A TANGLE OF SURPRISES 65 

“ You do believe, though, in talking things over 
with your mother.” 

“Sure! We always tell Ma everything if we 
can get a chance. So does all Mulberry Court, for 
that matter. Ma’s that sort.” 

The stranger toyed with an ivory letter-opener 
thoughtfully. 

“ Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” began he at 
last. “ To-day is Saturday, isn’t it? ” 

Carl nodded. 

“Well, if your friends, the Harlings, are not 
straightened out by Monday morning I will let 
you begin a week from to-day as errand boy in this 
office.” 

“ Bully! ” cried the delighted applicant. 

“ If, on the other hand,” continued the gentle¬ 
man at the desk, speaking slowly and evenly, and 
not heeding the interruption, “ Miss Harling finds 
work and the family do not need your aid, you 
must agree to put in your free time at home help¬ 
ing your mother as you have been doing in the past. 
Is that a bargain? ” 

“ Y-e-s.” 

“ What’s the matter? ” 

“ It just seems to me we might as well settle it 
definitely now that I am to come here next week. 
To-day is Saturday and I don’t believe Louise will 
find work before Monday morning. Of course 
she can’t do anything about getting a job Sun¬ 
day.” 

Although there was a perceptible tremor of 
disappointment in the boy’s voice the stranger 


66 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

appeared not to notice it. Rising, he put out his 
hand with a kindly smile. 

“ I am afraid the agreement I have made with 
you is the best I can do at present,” said he. “ I 
will be true to my part of it if you will be true to 
yours. I promise you that if the Harlings’ affairs 
do not take an upward turn by Monday you shall 
come to their rescue.” 

“ Thank you, sir.” 

“ I wouldn’t worry any more about this, if I 
were you, sonny,” concluded the man. “ Go home 
and try to be satisfied. I’ll keep the place for 
you, remember. It is Carl McGregor, isn’t it, 
of — ” 

“ Mulberry Court — the top flat.” 

“ And did you tell me these friends of yours, the 
Harlings, lived there too?” 

“ Oh, no, sir! I wish they did. The Harlings 
are at Number 40 Broad Street. It is the corner 
house. They took the tenement because there was 
sun, and because it entertains Grandfather and 
Mrs. Harling to look out the window. They can’t 
ever go out and it cheers them up to have some¬ 
thing to see. It costs more to live there than 
where we do, but Hal and Louise decided it was 
worth it.” 

“ Under the circumstances I imagine it is,” as¬ 
sented the stranger. “ Well, we will wish them 
luck.” 

“ I hope they have it! ” 

“ So do I.” As he spoke the man pressed a bell 
in answer to which the uniformed page appeared. 


A TANGLE OF SURPRISES 67 

“ Show this young gentleman out, Billie,” said 
he. “ Good-by, youngster! Good-by!” 

The farewell was cordial and in its cadence 
rang so disconcerting a finality that try as he 
might Carl could not repress a conviction that in 
spite of his suave promises his new-found friend 
did not really expect to see him again. 

“ I guess there are folks like that,” meditated 
he, as he walked dispiritedly home. “ They are 
awful pleasant to your face and give you the feel¬ 
ing they are going to do wonders for you. But 
when it comes to the scratch they slide from un¬ 
der. This chap is one of that slick bunch, I’ll bet 
a hat.” 

It was not a cheering reflection and with every 
step lower and lower ebbed his hopes. It chanced 
that his pathway to Mulberry Court led past the 
corner of Broad Street (or if it did not really lead 
him there his subconscious mind did) and once 
in the vicinity what more natural than that he 
should drop in at Number 40 to pass the time 
of day? Grandfather Harling loved to have vis¬ 
itors. He said they cheered him up. 

But to-day neither the old gentleman nor any 
of the Harling family needed cheering. Carl 
found them in such high spirits that for a time it 
was difficult to get any of the group to talk co¬ 
herently. 

“What do you suppose has happened, Carl?” 
cried Louise, the instant he was inside the door. 
“The most wonderful thing! You never could 
guess if you guessed forever.” 


68 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ If it is as hopeless as that I shan’t try,” laughed 
Carl. 

“ But it is amazing, a miracle!” put in Mrs. 
Harling. 

“ We can’t understand it at all,” quavered 
Grandfather Harling, who was quite as excited 
as the rest. 

“ Well, what is it? ” the boy demanded. 

“ You’ll never believe it,” laughed Louise with 
shining eyes. “ I’ve had a letter. You couldn’t 
guess who it’s from! ” 

She held a square white envelope high above her 
head. 

“ I’m going to have it framed and hand it down 
to my great-great-grandchildren.” 

“ You might let me see it,” coaxed Carl, putting 
out his hand. 

“ Oh, it is far too precious to be touched. It is 
going to be an archive, an heirloom, you know.” 

“ Oh, come on and tell a chap what’s happened,” 
urged Carl, his patience beginning to wane. 

“ Well, think of this! I’ve had a note from Mr. 
Coulter — not from the firm, understand, but from 
the great J. W. himself, written by his own hand. 
He says he hears that through some error my name 
has been dropped from the Davis and Coulter pay¬ 
roll, and he not only asks me to come back to the 
mill but sends me a check for double the sum that 
I have lost by being out. Can you beat that? ” 

“ Oh, Louise, how bully! I am glad! But 
how do you suppose — ” 

“ That’s exactly what we don’t know. It seems 


A TANGLE OF SURPRISES 69 

like magic, doesn’t it? I never knew before that 
Mr. Coulter kept such close track of what went on 
at the mills. He doesn’t come there often because 
he is always at the down-town office. When he 
does visit the mills he simply strolls through them 
as if they belonged to somebody else rather than to 
himself. Of course he doesn’t know one of the 
workers and I’ve always fancied he didn’t care 
much about us. But this proves how wrong I was 
to think so. He does care, you see, and means 
everybody shall have a square deal. I shall go 
back Monday and work harder than ever for him. 
You will work your fingers off for such a man as 
that, you know.” 

“ It certainly is white of him! ” Carl agreed. 

“ It is nothing but justice,” asserted Mrs. Har- 
ling proudly. “ Still, justice isn’t a common com¬ 
modity in this world.” 

“ Evidently it isn’t Mr. Coulter’s fault if it isn’t, 
Mother,” Louise replied. “ And isn’t it nice, 
Carl, that I am not to go back to work under Mr. 
Corcoran. Oh, I forgot to tell you that. That 
is almost the best of all. No! I am to be in the 
shipping department where the work is lighter 
and the pay better. Won’t Hal be tickled to death 
when he hears it? He’ll be more convinced than 
ever that he did the right thing to lay Corcoran 
out.” 

“ I think he did. Still, it was a dangerous ex¬ 
periment and this should be a warning to him,” 
put in Mrs. Harling. “ Hal must learn to be 
more careful with his temper, his tongue, and those 


70 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


fists of his. If he isn’t he is going to get into seri¬ 
ous trouble some day.” 

Carl, however, was not listening to Mrs. Har- 
ling’s moralizing. 

“ I wish I knew how Mr. Coulter found out 
about Louise,” murmured he, half aloud. 

Well, this was certainly a most satisfactory 
termination to the Harlings’ troubles. He was 
genuinely glad the affair had turned so fortunately. 
And yet in his heart lurked a vague regret. This 
would mean that probably he would never see or 
hear from the mysterious hero of the red racing 
car again. Could the stranger have had any 
knowledge of what was to happen and did that 
information account for his jaunty adieu? Of 
course such a thing was impossible. And yet how 
odd and puzzling it all was! 


CHAPTER VI 


THE WEB WIDENS 

“ WHEREVER did you disappear to?” inquired 
his mother when, hungry but triumphant, Carl 
came home. “ I’ve been looking everywhere for 
you.” 

“ I didn’t know you wanted me this morning, 
Ma,” the boy replied, an afterglow of happiness 
still on his face. 

“ I didn’t really want you but I wanted to know 
where you were. I’ve asked you time and time 
again when you go out to tell me where you’re 
going.” 

“ I wanted to, Mother, but it was such a long 
story. Last night you were too busy to hear it; 
and this morning there was no chance to talk tc 
you either.” 

He heard his mother sigh. 

“ It’s a pretty kind of a life I lead if my own 
children can’t get a minute to talk to me.” 

“ But you are busy, Ma. You know you 
are.” 

“ I certainly do. Nobody knows it better,” re¬ 
plied the woman with a sad shake of her head. 

Carl, sensing the regret in her tone, hastened to 
say: 


72 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“ Well, at least the family is not so thick 
around here now as usual. Where is every¬ 
body? ” 

“ Mary is out with James Frederick; Timmie 
has gone to the park to coast; and Martin and Nell 
are at the day nursery.” 

“ Then we have it all to ourselves.” 

“ For a second or two, yes.” 

“ That’s bully!” 

Drawing up a kitchen chair he sat down beside 
his mother. 

“ It’s nice to have them gone sometimes,” re¬ 
marked he. “ The kids make such a racket.” 

“ They’ll not always be making it,” returned 
Mrs. McGregor philosophically. “ And anyway, 
the three of them put together can never equal the 
hullabaloo you used to make when you were their 
age.” 

“ I’m quiet enough now,” grinned Carl sheep¬ 
ishly. 

“ Quiet, you call it, do you? Quiet! And you 
prancing home from every ball game with a black 
eye or else the clothes half torn off you! ” She 
chuckled mischievously. “ But you’re not telling 
me where you’ve been. Up to some deviltry, I’ll 
be bound, or you wouldn’t be so anxious to get it 
off your conscience.” 

“ I haven’t been up to any high jinks this time, 
Ma,” protested the lad soberly. “ You’ll see when 
I tell you.” 

Slowly he related his story while his mother bent 
over her needle, spangling with brilliants a gauze 


THE WEB WIDENS 


73 

of azure hue. She was a wonderful listener, sym¬ 
pathetic in her intentness. 

When the boy had finished her hand wandered 
to touch his rough sleeve. 

“ A kind deed is never amiss in the world,” ob¬ 
served she briefly. “ If we would but pass on to 
other folks the kindness people do to us the world 
would soon become a pleasanter place. I’m thank¬ 
ful to know Louise has her job back, or rather that 
she has a better one. She’s a good girl and de¬ 
serves it. Besides, with Christmas coming, it 
would be hard to be without money.” 

“And Mr. Coulter — wasn’t he great? And 
wasn’t it all funny? ” 

“ Funny is hardly the word; but I’ll agree that 
Mr. Coulter was great. It is always great for a 
big man to take on his soul the troubles of those 
needier than himself. Well, he’s done a good deed 
this day and may he be the happier for it. And he 
will be — never fear! I wonder how he got wind 
of the trouble Louise was in? You don’t suppose 
— ” She halted a moment as if suddenly struck by 
a new thought; then she laughed and shrugged her 
shoulders, “ Of course it couldn’t be — how ridicu¬ 
lous! Well, anyway, it is splendid everything has 
come out so well. And now that you’re here, 
sonny, would you mind fetching some coal from the 
shed and starting up the fire for dinner? Mary’ll 
be back soon and ’twould be a nice surprise for her 
to find the kettle boiling.” 

“ So it would! ” answered Carl, leaping up to 
do his mother’s bidding. 


74 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“ I’m not forgetting you’d like to do a bit of 
coasting or skating to-day,” Mrs. McGregor con¬ 
tinued. “ If you will fit in a few errands early in 
the afternoon I’ll let you off at two o’clock for a 
holiday.” 

“ That will be great, Ma! But — but don’t 

you — ” 

“ It will be all right, sonny. Tim has had his 
play this morning and he shall help the rest of the 
day. Hush a minute! Isn’t that Mrs. O’Dowd’s 
knock? Very like she’s up to ask me to run down 
and see little Katie who is laid up with a sore 
throat. Well, I’ll go but I won’t be long. Mean¬ 
time if you can lend Mary a hand dinner will be 
through the quicker and you will be off to play the 
earlier.” 

Thus it happened that before two o’clock Carl 
McGregor was one of the shouting throng of boys 
that crowded the small pond in Davis Park. Amid 
swirling skaters and a confusion of hockey sticks he 
moved in and out the thick of the game. So intent 
was he upon the sport that he might have continued 
playing until dark had not a boy at his elbow sud¬ 
denly piped: 

“There goes Hal Harling! Hi, Hal! Come 
on down! ” 

u Harling! Harling! ” cried the other boys, tak¬ 
ing up the call. 

“ Come on and play, Hal! You can have San¬ 
derson’s skates. He’s going home.” 

“ Can’t do it! ” laughed the giant, waving his 
hand. 


THE WEB WIDENS 


75 


“ Oh, come on, old top! ” 

“ Not to-night, fellers! Got to go home.” 

“ I’ve got to see Harling! ” Carl exclaimed, hur¬ 
riedly loosening his skates. 

“ You’re not going, too! ” 

“ Got to. So long! Hold on, Hal! I’m com¬ 
ing with you.” 

Scrambling up the bank, Carl overtook his 
friend. 

“ Hullo, Carlie! What struck you to quit?” 
asked he unceremoniously. 

“ Time I was getting home. Besides, I wanted 
to see you.” 

A smile passed between them. 

“ To tell the truth, I hoped I’d spy you some¬ 
where, kid. I’ve got great news! Corcoran has 
been fired! What do you know about that? ” 

“ Corcoran! ” 

“The old man himself — no other!” 

“Jove! Why, I thought you said he’d been at 
the mills all his life.” 

“ So he has.” 

“ But — but — to fire him now! ” 

“ Well, he hasn’t actually been fired,” amended 
young Harling, “ but so far as I’m concerned it 
amounts to the same thing. He’s been transferred 
to another department and he isn’t to be a boss any 
more, poor old chap! ” 

“But aren’t you glad?” questioned Carl with 
surprise. 

“ Why, yes, in some ways,” returned Hal 
thoughtfully. “Yes, of course I’m glad not to 


76 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

have him sarsing the girls and pestering me. Still, 
I’m sort of sorry for him.” 

“Sorry?” 

Hal nodded. 

“ But I thought you — ” 

“1 know! I know! I’m not saying he wasn’t 
an awful old screw. But somehow I don’t be¬ 
lieve he meant to be so flinty-hearted. You see, 
he came and talked to me to-day — talked like a 
regular human being. You could have knocked 
me over. It seems — a funny thing — that kid I 
picked up out of the street the other day was his.” 

“ Corcoran’s kid! ” 

“ Yep! Can you beat it? Of course I hadn’t a 
notion who the little tike belonged to; but even if I 
had I should have done the same thing. You 
wouldn’t let a kid like that be run over no matter 
who his father was.” 

“ But — but — Corcoran! ” gasped Carl. 
“ How did he know it was you who rescued his 
baby? ” 

“ Somebody told him. He said it cut him up 
terribly because of the way he’d treated Louise.” 

“ Served him right.” 

“ Maybe! But he was cut up, poor old cuss! 
You’d have been sorry for him yourself, if you’d 
heard him. He isn’t all brute by any means. 
Why, when he spoke about his little boy — ” 

“ But Louise! ” 

“ I know. It was a low-down trick and he said 
so himself. But he declared it was an ill wind 
that blew nobody good, and he hinted that maybe 


THE WEB WIDENS 


77 

in consequence of the trouble she would be better 
off than if it hadn’t happened.” 

Carl bit his tongue to keep it silent. How he 
longed to impart to his chum the good tidings that 
would greet him when he reached home! But he 
must not spoil Louise’s pleasure by telling the 
story of her good luck for her. 

“ Oh, somehow things do seem to come round 
right if you wait long enough,” mumbled he. 

“ So mother says,” echoed Hal moodily. “ But 
you get almighty sick of waiting sometimes. Even 
knowing you were right doesn’t put pennies in your 
pocket.” He laughed with a touch of bitterness. 

Again Carl was tempted to break the silence and 
reveal the wonderful secret, and again he clamped 
his lips together. 

Hal would hear the tidings soon enough now and 
his spirits would soar the higher because of the 
depths to which they had descended. It was al¬ 
ways so. This broad range of mood was one of his 
chief charms. 

Ah, how well he knew his friend and how accu¬ 
rately did he forecast what would happen! 

It was not five minutes after the two parted at 
the corner before Hal Harling came leaping up 
the McGregors’ stairway and gave a loud knock 
at their door. 

“ Oh, you old tight-jaw! ” announced he, when 
on entering, he beheld Carl grinning at him from 
across the room. “ You might have put me out of 
my misery.” 

The boy laughed. 


78 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ It wasn’t my secret! I’d have been a cur to 
butt in on Louise’s fun.” 

“ So you would! ” 

Quietly Mrs. McGregor glanced up from the 
sea of delicate blue gauze foaming about her. 

“ A ready tongue is a gift of silver, but a silent 
one is a treasure of pure gold,” observed she 
quaintly. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE COMING OF THE FAIRY GODMOTHER 

WITH the Harlings safely out of their difficul¬ 
ties Christmas, as Carl jestingly observed, was free 
to approach and approach it did with a speed in¬ 
credible of belief. A big blizzard a week before 
it, which transformed the suburban districts into a 
wonderland of beauty, merely worked havoc how¬ 
ever in Baileyville, causing muddy streets and slip¬ 
pery pavements, and wrecking the skating in the 
park. 

“ Snow doesn’t seem to be made for cities,” re¬ 
marked Mrs. McGregor in reply to Carl’s lam¬ 
entations. “ It is an old-fashioned institution 
that belongs to the past. Here in town there is 
neither a place for it nor does it do an atom of 
good to anybody unless it is the unemployed who 
hail the work it brings.” 

“ I hate the snow,” wailed Timmie. “ It isn’t 
snow, anyway; it’s just slush.” 

“ Ah, laddie, you should see one of the snow¬ 
storms of the old country!” protested his Scotch 
mother reminiscently. “ Then you would not say 
you hated the snow. It turned everything it 
touched white as a Tartary lamb.” 


8 o 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“What’s a Tartary lamb, Mother?” inquired 
Tim with interest. 

“A Tartary lamb? Ask your big brother; he 
goes to school.” 

“ I never heard of a Tartary lamb, Ma,” flushed 
Carl. 

“ Mary had a little lamb,” began Nell, who had 
caught the phrase. 

“ So she did, darling,” laughed her mother as 
she picked up the child and kissed her, “ and its 
fleece was white as snow, too, for the song says so; 
but it wasn’t a Tartary lamb, dearie. It was just 
a common one.” 

“ What is a Tartary lamb, anyway, Ma? ” Mary 
demanded. 

Mrs. McGregor paused to put a length of silk 
into her needle. 

“ Long ago,” began she, “ before there were 
ships and trains, to say nothing of automobiles and 
aeroplanes people had to stay at home in the places 
where they happened to be born. Of course they 
could go by coach or on horseback to a near-by 
city, but they could not go far; nor indeed did 
they think of going because they did not know 
there was anywhere to go. Nobody did any trav¬ 
eling in those days and as a result there were no 
maps or travel books to set you thinking you must 
pack up your traps to-morrow and start for some 
place you never had seen. But by and by the com¬ 
pass was invented, larger and better ships came 
to be built, and men got the idea the world was 
round instead of flat (as they had at one time sup- 


COMING OF FAIRY GODMOTHER 81 


posed), a discovery that comforted vastly the timid 
souls who had always been afraid of falling off the 
edge of it. Therefore, when it was at last proved 
that should you sail far, far away your ship, in¬ 
stead of dropping off into space, would circle the 
great ball we live on and come home again, some 
of those who were brave, adventurous, and had 
money enough set out on voyages to see what there 
was to be seen in other lands than those they had 
been brought up in. Frenchmen thought it would 
be a grand thing to discover new countries for 
France; Englishmen wanted new territory for 
England. So it was all over the world. Thus 
this one and that one began to travel.” 

“ Just as Columbus came to America, Ma,” put 
in Tim. 

“ Exactly, dear,” nodded his mother. “ Now 
you can imagine what a hero such a traveler be¬ 
came; how people admired his daring; and how 
half of them wished they were going with him and 
the other half rejoiced that they weren’t. And 
when he came back there was great excitement 
to hear where he had been and what he had seen! 
Every word he spoke was passed from mouth to 
mouth, each person who repeated it adding to the 
story until it grew like a snowball. And as was 
inevitable the more raptly the populace listened 
the more marvelous became the stories.” 

“ Like Jack Murphy when he gets home from 
the circus,” put in Tim. 

“Yes, very much like Jack Murphy, I am 
afraid; only sometimes these travelers really be- 


82 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


lieved the tales they told. Sometimes the stories 
had been passed on to them by the natives of the 
strange countries they visited, and how could they 
know that all which was told them was not true? 
Such a tale was the legend of the Tartary lamb.” 

“Tell it to us, Mother,” urged Mary. 

“ Well, it actually isn’t much of a story, my 
dear. You see, when the travelers from England, 
France, and other western countries went to the 
East for the first time, they saw cotton growing, or 
if they did not really see it, they heard there was 
such a thing. Now cotton was entirely new to 
the voyagers and it seemed unbelievable that such 
a plant could be. Some of the eastern natives told 
the visitors that in each pod grew a little lamb 
with soft, white fleece. Orientals were very igno¬ 
rant in those days. The Tartars went even farther 
and said the lamb bent the stalk he lived on down 
to the ground and ate all the food within reach; 
and when he had nibbled up all the grass and 
roots around him he died, and then it was that 
people took his fleece and twisted it into thread, 
which was woven into garments. Thus the legend 
became established and the belief in the Tartary 
lamb became so firm that for several hundred 
years people even in England thought that 
in the Far East there grew this wonderful plant 
with a vegetable lamb sprouting from the top of it.” 

“How silly of them!” sniffed Carl. 

“ No sillier than lots of the things we now be¬ 
lieve, probably,” replied his mother. “ Aren’t we 
constantly discovering how mistaken some of our 


COMING OF FAIRY GODMOTHER 83 

cherished beliefs were? That is what progress is. 
We learn continually to cast aside outgrown no¬ 
tions and adopt wiser and better ones. So it was 
in the past. The world was very young in those 
days, you must remember, and people did not 
know so much about it as we do now. And even 
we, with all our wisdom, are going to be laughed 
at years hence, precisely as you are laughing now 
about those who believed the story of the Tartary 
lamb. Men are going to say: ‘Think of those 
poor, stupid old things back in nineteen hundred 
and twenty-three who believed so-and-so! How 
could they have done it?’” 

Carl was silent. 

“ When you consider this you will understand 
how it was that the eager readers of the past de¬ 
voured with wide-open eyes the tale-telling of 
Sir John Mandeville; and should you ever read 
that ancient story, as I hope you will sometime, 
you will be less surprised to hear that even he 
declared that he had seen cotton growing and that 
when the pod of the plant was cut open inside it 
was a little creature like a lamb. The natives of 
the East ate both the fruit of the plant and the 
wee beast, he explained. In fact he said he had 
eaten the thing himself.” 

“Why, the very idea!” gasped Mary. 

“What a lie!” Carl burst out. 

“ I’m afraid Sir John was either not very truth¬ 
ful or he had a great imagination,” smiled Mrs. 
McGregor. “ Still, you see, he was not alone in 
his belief about the Tartary lamb. So many other 


84 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

people believed the yarn that he probably thought 
he was telling the truth. And as for eating it — 
well, he just had a strain of Jack Murphy in him. 
Besides, there were no schools in 1322 to teach 
Sir John Mandeville better. And anyway, who 
was to contradict the fable? Sir John had been 
to the East and the other people hadn’t. Why 
shouldn’t they believe what he and other trav¬ 
elers told them?” 

“ He did sort of have them, didn’t he? ” grinned 
Carl. 

“ How long was it before the public stopped 
believing such a ridiculous story? ” demanded 
Mary. 

“ About three hundred years,” answered her 
mother. “ In the meantime much traveling had 
been done by the peoples of all nations and learn¬ 
ing had made great strides. Scientific men be¬ 
gan to whisper there could be no such thing as 
the lamb of the Tartars; it was not possible. Cot¬ 
ton was merely a plant. You can imagine what 
discussions such an assertion as that raised. The 
public had come to like the notion of the Tartary 
lamb and did not wish to give it up; besides, if 
the story were all a myth, it put the travelers who 
had told it in a very bad light, and shook the con¬ 
fidence of readers in some of the other tales they 
had published. Science always upsets us. None 
of us like to be jolted out of the beliefs we have 
been brought up with and exchange them for 
others, no matter how good the new ones are. So 
it was in sixteen hundred. The populace resented 


COMING OF FAIRY GODMOTHER 85 

having the Tartary lamb taken away from them.” 

Mrs. McGregor laughed. 

“ It was a pity Sir John Mandeville and the 
rest did not live long enough to learn how mis¬ 
taken they had been,” mused Mary. 

“Poor old Sir John! I guess it was as well 
for him that he didn’t, for in his day he was, you 
see, quite a celebrity. He might not have relished 
living to see his fame evaporate. At least he had 
the courage to make a trip to a strange and distant 
land, and for that we should respect him since it 
took nerve to travel in those days. Moreover he 
did his part and was a link in a civilization that 
went on after he was gone. So the history of the 
world is built up. Each generation builds on 
the blunders of the one before it — or should.” 

“ How queer it makes you feel; and how 
small!” Mary reflected. 

“ Why? ” 

“ Well, it just seems as if we didn’t count for 
much,” sighed the girl. 

“ On the contrary, dear child, we count for a 
great deal,” instantly retorted her mother. “ Each 
one of us can have a share in the vast plan of the 
universe and help carry it forward.” 

“ How, Mother? ” 

“ By doing all we can during our lifetime to 
make the world better,” was the answer. “ Good 
men and good women make a good world, don’t 
they? And the better the world the farther ahead 
will be its civilization. Progress is not all in won¬ 
derful discoveries of science, in fine architecture, 


86 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


or in great books; much of it lies in the peoples of 
the globe learning to live peacefully together and 
help one another. Kindness to our neighbor, 
therefore, helps civilization. It cannot avoid do¬ 
ing so if we live it on a large enough scale.” 

“ I never thought of that before,” meditated 
Carl. 

“ But you can see it is so, laddie,” responded 
his mother. “ A lack of kindness and fairness in 
nations causes wars, and wars put the world back¬ 
ward. It is in the peaceful times that nations 
grow. You know yourself that you cannot build 
up anything when somebody else is waiting to 
knock it down the minute you have it finished. 
Under such conditions it hardly seems worth 
while to build at all. So it is with nations the 
world over. When they are snarling jealously at 
one another’s heels, and coveting what the other 
possesses, how can progress be made?” 

“ I suppose when they get mad they forget about 
the work of the world,” Tim announced. 

“ That is just the trouble,” agreed his mother. 
“ Engrossed in their own little squabbles, they lose 
sight of the splendid big thing they were put here 
to do. In other words they forget their job, 
which is to make the world and themselves bet¬ 
ter.” 

Slowly she glanced from one earnest face into 
another. 

“ Well, I’ve read you quite a sermon, haven’t 
I? ” smiled she. “ And it was all because of the 
Tartary lamb. Now suppose we talk of some- 


COMING OF FAIRY GODMOTHER 87 

thing else — Christmas. It will be here now be¬ 
fore we know it. What shall we do this year? 
Shall it be a tree? Or shall we hang our stock¬ 
ings, go without a tree, and put the money into a 
Christmas dinner? ” 

Inquiringly she studied her children’s faces. 

“ I suppose a tree does cost quite a lot before 
you are through with it,” reflected the prudent 
Mary. 

“ And we have the municipal tree in the park, 
anyway,” Carl put in in an attempt to be optimis¬ 
tic. 

“ But that tree isn’t ours, our very own tree,” 
Tim began to wail. 

“ It is lots bigger than any tree we could have, 
Timmie,” asserted his older brother. “ And think 
of the lights! They are all electric. We couldn’t 
have lights like those here at home.” 

“ I know,” grieved Tim. “ But it isn’t our tree 
— just ours — in our house.” 

“ A Christmas tree costs ever so much money, 
Timmie,” Mary explained gently. “ Mother 
can’t buy us a tree always and a dinner, too.” 

“ Oh, I could manage a small tree, perhaps,” 
interrupted Mrs. McGregor, touched at seeing 
the child so disappointed. “ There are little ones 
at the market.” 

“ But I don’t want a little one,” objected Tim 
stubbornly. “ I want a big, big Christmas tree.” 

“ Big as the ceiling — big as Mulberry Court,” 
interrupted Martin, extending his chubby arms 
to their full length. 


88 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“ I wants a big tree, too,” lisped Nell. 

Mrs. McGregor sighed to herself. Evidently 
it was not going to be as easy to coax her flock 
away from their established traditions as she had 
at first supposed. Each year she had made a stu¬ 
pendous effort to keep Christmas after the old 
fashion; and each season the ceremony, before it 
was over, made appalling inroads on her slender 
purse. This time it had been her plan to curtail 
expenses and put what was spent into the more 
substantial and lasting things. But now as she 
glanced about her her heart misgave her. Even 
Carl and Mary, valiantly as they fought for econ¬ 
omy, and grown up though they were, could not 
altogether conceal the fact that they were disap¬ 
pointed; and as for the younger children, they 
were on the brink of tears. 

“ Well, we won’t decide to-day,” announced 
their mother diplomatically. “ We will think it 
over until to-morrow. By that time perhaps some 
way can be found — ” 

A knock at the door interrupted her. 

“ Run to the door like a good boy, Timmie,” 
said she. “ Very likely it’s the boy from the cor¬ 
ner grocery with the bundles of wood I ordered.” 

Tim rose with importance. Visitors to the fifth 
floor of Mulberry Court were so few that to admit 
even so prosaic a one as the grocer’s boy never 
ceased to thrill him. 

To-day, however, it was not the grocer’s boy 
who stood peering at him from the dim hallway. 
In fact, it was no one he had ever seen before. A 


COMING OF FAIRY GODMOTHER 89 

little old man stood there, a man with ruddy 
cheeks, a stern mouth, and blue eyes whose sharp¬ 
ness was softened by a moist, far-away expression. 
From beneath a nautical blue cap strayed a wisp 
or two of white hair. Otherwise, he was but¬ 
toned to his chin in a great coat, fastened with im¬ 
posing brass buttons, dulled by much fingering. 

Apprehensive at the sight, Tim backed into the 
room. Brass buttons, in his limited experience, 
meant either firemen or policemen and either of 
these dignitaries was equally terrifying. 

“ You don’t know your Uncle Frederick, do you, 
sonny? ” observed the stranger. 

The voice, more than the words, brought Mrs. 
McGregor to her feet in an instant, and what a 
rush she made for the door! Gauze, spangles, 
scissors, and spool flew in all directions and the 
children, deciding that some unprecedented evil 
had befallen, stampeded after her. 

Open-mouthed, they watched, while in the arms 
of the little old gentleman she laughed, cried, and 
uttered broken nothings quite unintelligible to any¬ 
body. 

“ Who ever would have thought to see you, 
Frederick!” gasped she at last, as wiping her 
eyes on the corner of her apron she dragged her 
visitor into the room. “ Children, come here one 
by one and speak to your Uncle James Frederick 
Dillingham. This is Carl, the oldest one — a 
good boy as ever lived (if he is always tearing his 
clothes). The next is Mary; she’s going on thir¬ 
teen and is quite a little housekeeper even now. 


90 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


Timmie, who let you in, is nine. And here are 
Martin and Nell — the mites! James Frederick 
is asleep but when you see him you’ll see the finest 
baby you ever set your two eyes on. Kiss your 
uncle, children. You know it’s him you have to 
thank for many, many things.” 

Slowly the children advanced, wonder (and 
if the truth must be told) no small measure of 
chagrin in their crestfallen countenances. 

Was this apparition the fairy prince of their 
imaginings — this little gray man with his long 
coat and oilskin bundle? Why, he might be Mike 
Carrigan, the butcher; or Davie Ryan, the pro¬ 
prietor of the fruit stand, for anything his appear¬ 
ance denoted. Their dreams were in the dust. 
Still, youth is hopeful and they did not quite let 
go the expectation that when the long coat that 
disguised him had been removed and the magic 
bundle opened Uncle Frederick Dillingham would 
issue forth in a garb startling, resplendent, and 
more in accordance with their mental pictures of 
him. But to their profound disappointment, when 
the great coat was tossed aside, it concealed no 
ermine-robed hero; nor was there crown or scep¬ 
ter in the bundle. Instead there stood in their 
midst a very plain, kindly little man arrayed in a 
shiny suit of blue serge that was almost shabby. 
The buttons, to be sure, had anchors on them; 
but they were dim, lusterless old anchors that 
looked as if they had been sunk in the depths of 
the sea until their golden glory had been tarnished 
by the washings of a million waves. 


COMING OF FAIRY GODMOTHER 91 

Nell eyed him and at length began to cry. 

“ Policeman! ” she whimpered, hiding her face 
in her mother’s skirt. 

“ Hush, girlie! Don’t be silly,” protested Mrs. 
McGregor hurriedly. “ Your uncle is no police¬ 
man, though he may get one if you don’t stop that 
noise.” 

At that the little old man laughed a hearty, 
ringing laugh, so good to hear that in spite of 
themselves the whole family joined in it. After 
that, everything was easy. Uncle James Fred¬ 
erick Dillingham tucked his coat, cap, and bundle 
away in a corner and allowed his sister to seat him 
in the rocking-chair before the stove. 

“ Put another shovelful of coal on the lire, 
Carl,” said she briskly. “ And Mary, do you slip 
out to the market and fetch home a beefsteak and 
some onions. You were ever fond of a steak 
smothered in onions, Frederick. Timmie, you 
shall set the table with a place for your uncle 
Frederick at the head, remember. And Nell, trot 
to the shed, darling, and bring mother a' nice lot 
of potatoes. Go softly so not to waken James 
Frederick.” 

Promptly her host sprang to obey her. 

“ Well, well, Brother,” murmured she, “ I’ve 
scarcely got my breath yet. I never was so sur¬ 
prised in all my born days as to see you standing 
there on the mat! Wherever did you come from? 
We’ve not heard from you for weeks and I 
had begun to fear something might have gone 
amiss.” 


92 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

Captain Dillingham patted her hand with his 
horny one. 

“We had a long trip home, Nellie, because of 
strong head winds,” explained he. “ Then, too, 
there were ports to stop at and cargo to unload. 
Add to this a fracas with the engine and you’ll 
readily understand why I had only scant time for 
letter writing. I never was any too good at it, at 
best, you know.” 

“ Men never are,” returned Mrs. McGregor 
cheerily over her shoulder as she bustled out of 
the pantry with a clean tablecloth. “ But it mat¬ 
ters not now; the ship is safe in port and you are 
here in time for Christmas — a miracle that’s 
never happened before in all my memory.” 

“ But —,” began her brother doubtfully. 

“ But what? Surely you’re not going to say you 
are putting straight off to-morrow for India or 
some other heathen spot! No shipowners would 
be so heartless as to ask you to do that. Besides, 
very like the Charlotte must need repairing after 
such a stiff trip. Oughtn’t her seams to be caulked 
or something? ” 

Captain Dillingham’s eyes twinkled and the 
corners of his mouth curved upward. 

“You’re quite knowing in nautical matters, 
Nellie,” observed he with amusement. “ Aye, the 
Charlotte will have to lay to and be overhauled 
some. She had a tough voyage. Still, she don’t 
mind it much. She’s a thoroughbred that takes 
what comes without whimpering. That’s the lady 
of her. I never have to offer excuses or apologies 


COMING OF FAIRY GODMOTHER 93 

for her — no, siree! Tell her what you want done 
and you can count on her doing it every time.” 

“ I’m sorry you didn’t have a better voyage 
home,” ventured his sister. 

“ Oh, the voyage was all right enough. You 
can’t expect a marble floor to sail on in December. 
Indeed a trip such as that would be almost too 
tame for me. I like the kick of the sea. Still, 
heavy winds that hold you back all the way over 
as these held us, are trying. You make but slow 
progress against them. Nevertheless the Char¬ 
lotte put up a stiff fight and don’t you forget it.” 

“ Had you any storms this trip? ” 

“ Storms? Oh, I believe we did strike a gale 
or two, now I come to think of it. I recall there 
was a nasty typhoon in the Indian Ocean that kept 
us busy for a while. But such happenings are all 
in the day’s work and after they are over are for¬ 
gotten.” 

Carl, busy at his task of slicing the bread, gasped. 
Gales and typhoons! And the Indian Ocean to 
boot! And his uncle mentioned them all as if 
they were no more than flies on the wall. He had 
seen the Indian Ocean on the map — an area of 
blue edged about with patches of pink, green, and 
yellow; but he certainly had never expected to 
meet in the flesh anybody who had sailed its 
waters. 

Uncle Frederick Dillingham suddenly began 
to take on in his eyes an aspect quite new; an as¬ 
pect so alluring that when contrasted with the 
myth of purple and ermine the latter tradition 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


94 

shriveled into something very minor in impor¬ 
tance. Was not the master of a ship a far more 
intriguing character than a dull old king who did 
nothing but sit on a crimson velvet throne and 
wave a scepter? 

“You’ll have much to tell us, Frederick,” de¬ 
clared Mrs. McGregor, putting the potatoes into 
the oven. “ The children know little of foreign 
lands. Nor do I know as much of them as I 
would. ’Twill be grand to hear where you’ve 
been and what you’ve seen.” 

“ Did you go to China, Uncle Frederick? ” Carl 
inquired timidly. 

“Aye! And to India and Japan, laddie.” 

The boy’s eyes glowed with excitement. 

“ Oh, wouldn’t I like to sail on a big ship to 
some place that was different from Mulberry 
Court! ” cried he. 

“ The places I’ve been in lately were certainly 
different from Mulberry Court! ” sighed Captain 
Dillingham. “ And perhaps had you seen them 
you would be as glad as I am to be at Mulberry 
Court.” 

“Maybe! I’d like a peep at something else, 
though.” 

“ Maybe some day you’ll be having it,” returned 
the sea captain jocosely. “Who knows! I may 
be taking you to India with me when you’re older.” 

“Frederick!” came from Mrs. McGregor in 
a horrified tone. 

“You wouldn’t like to see the shaver starting 
off for India, Nellie? And why not?” laughed 


COMING OF FAIRY GODMOTHER 95 

her brother. “ India is a fine country. Besides, 
traveling the world is a great way to study its 
geography. I’ll be willing to wager, now, that 
not one of these older children, though they have 
been to school since they were knee high, could 
tell me offhand where the Suez Canal is.” 

Consternation greeted the assertion and there 
was dead silence. 

“ There! What did I tell you? ” returned Cap¬ 
tain Dillingham triumphantly. “ And should I 
try them on the Bay of Biscay or the Ganges it 
would be no better.” 

The stillness was oppressive. 

“ Aren’t there — didn’t I read somewhere that 
there are crocodiles in the Ganges?” Carl man¬ 
aged to stammer. 

His uncle chuckled. 

“ There’s hope for you, son,” he answered. “ To 
know there are crocodiles in the Ganges is some¬ 
thing. Perhaps I shall make a tourist of you 
yet. But you will have to know a little more about 
this globe of ours before I can do it, I’m afraid.” 

“ I hate geography,” announced Tim, who had 
been listening and now with disconcerting frank¬ 
ness proclaimed his aversion in no uncertain 
terms. “ All it is is little squares of color.” 

Captain Dillingham glanced toward his sister 
and met her wry smile. 

“ That’s what books do for you,” acclaimed he. 
“ They make the romance of the Orient nothing 
but patchwork.” Then to Tim he continued, “ I 
can teach you better geography than that, laddie. 


96 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

Countries aren’t just little pieces of pink, yellow, 
or blue paper laid together. They are people, 
rivers, mountains; tea, sugar, and cotton; ivory, 
elephants, and carved temples.” 

The children had drawn closer around his knee. 

“ Tell us about the elephants,” pleaded Tim, 
with shining eyes. 

“ There, you see! You are begging already for 
a lesson in geography — much as you dislike it! ” 
teased his uncle. 

“ There can be no geography lessons now,” ob¬ 
jected Mrs. McGregor. “ The steak is done and 
mustn’t be spoiled with waiting. Show your uncle 
where to sit, Mary. And, Timmie, bring the salt. 
It’s been forgotten. You’ll have to bring a chair 
from my room, Martin. Remember James Fred¬ 
erick and go on your toes.” 

“Now, Frederick,” smiled his sister mischiev¬ 
ously, “ admit that even in India you’ve seen noth¬ 
ing better than this beefsteak.” 

“ ’Twill take no coaxing to make me admit 
that, my dear,” returned Captain Dillingham. 
“ Not all the sultans of the east could produce a 
dish as royal as this one.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE ROMANCE OF COTTON 

From the moment of Uncle James Frederick 
Dillingham’s arrival there began for the Mc¬ 
Gregor children an era of delight. The newly 
found relative, they soon discovered, was not only all 
they had pictured, but more — far more! 

He did not, it is true, actually live at Mulberry 
Court, for because of the crowded conditions of the 
McGregor home he took a room near-by; never¬ 
theless he might as well have lived there for he 
only used his own room to sleep in and stow away 
his luggage. Each morning just before breakfast 
his step would be heard on the stairs and off would 
race the children in merry rivalry to see who 
would reach the door first and have the honor of 
admitting him. Once inside the cosy kitchen he 
made it his headquarters and it did not take long 
to find out that he was a valuable asset there. 

For example who could fry fish so deliciously 
as he? And who could make such chowder? And 
as for washing dishes and wiping them he was 
quicker than any of the young folks. To behold 
an officer in gold braid presiding at the dishpan 
at first caused a protest from Mrs. McGregor; 
but when the little old man asserted that it was 


98 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

a treat to be inside a home and handle a mop and 
soap-shaker what could one say? So he mixed 
the foaming suds and dabbled in them up to his 
elbows, and when his sister witnessed the general 
frolic into which his leadership suddenly trans¬ 
formed the dishwashing she no longer objected. 
The center of an admiring group of youngsters 
Uncle Frederick scrubbed pots and pans until 
they shone like mirrors, and all to a chain of the 
most wonderful stories. 

What marvel that there were quarrels as to 
who should help him and actual bribes offered for 
the coveted pleasure? The children’s chatter 
never tired him. On the contrary he was in his 
element when they swarmed about his chair and 
perched on his knee. As for his namesake, James 
Frederick, there was not another such baby to be 
found in all the world, he declared. Often he 
would sit with the little fellow in his arms, croon¬ 
ing to him fragments of old sea chanties whose 
refrains were haunting to hear. Or he wheeled 
the baby out with as much pride as if he were 
treading the decks of the Charlotte. 

To see him one would have imagined that he 
had always lived at Mulberry Court. How natu¬ 
rally, for example, he wandered into the market, 
bringing back with him mysterious bundles which 
on being opened disclosed lamb chops, sweet po¬ 
tatoes, and oranges. And what a feast big and little 
McGregors had when such parcels made their 
advent in the kitchen! Or he would venture into 
the shopping district and appear with his pockets 


THE ROMANCE OF COTTON 


99 


bulging with rubbers, mittens, and caps. Oh, 
there never was such an uncle! His purse seemed 
lined with gold; or if it were not lined with this 
precious metal at least the supply of pennies it 
contained was unending. 

And not only was there one of these shiny pen¬ 
nies for each child in the family but before long 
the train of benefactions lengthened until there 
was scarce a boy or girl to be found in all Mul¬ 
berry Court who did not have tucked away in his 
mitten a golden disc with the shining face of 
Abraham Lincoln upon it. So it was that he be¬ 
came uncle not alone to the wee McGregors but 
to the community as well. 

Now of course it followed that such a visitor 
could not be more than a short cycle of hours in 
the neighborhood without making the acquaint¬ 
ance of the Harlings, and running in to amuse 
the shut-ins with his tales of foreign lands. For 
he was a rare story-teller, was Uncle Frederick. 
Never was there a better. And with running 
here and running there was it to be wondered at 
that he found himself as busy if not busier than he 
had been when aboard the Charlotte — a very 
lucky thing too, for he confided that he always 
got fidgety for his ship if he was idle when on 
shore. 

Now he had no chance to become nervous or 
fretful. Much travel had rendered it easy for him 
to establish contacts with persons. In consequence 
all types of human beings interested him and with 
a charm quite his own he swept aside the prelim- 


100 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


inaries and by simple and direct methods made 
straight for the hearts of those he met. He 
reached them, too — there was no doubt about 
that. Had he chosen he could have astounded 
Mulberry Court with all he knew about Julie 
O’Dowd, the Murphys, and the Sullivans. Why, 
he even knew all about Davis and Coulter’s mills 
before he had been in Baileyville twenty-four 
hours! 

Now this delightful relative could not but in¬ 
crease in the community the prestige of the Mc¬ 
Gregor family. To have a connection so popular, 
traveled, and prosperous — a man of rank, and 
adorned with brass buttons, what a luster all this 
shed over the inhabitants of the fifth floor of Mul¬ 
berry Court! Carl, Mary, Tim, Martin, were no 
longer rated as little street Arabs; suddenly they 
became the nieces, nephews (probably the heirs) 
of Captain James Frederick Dillingham who 
commanded the Charlotte and had sailed to every 
port under the sun. How the neighbors gossiped, 
congratulating themselves that they had discov¬ 
ered Mrs. McGregor’s virtues in time to be in¬ 
cluded in her circle of acquaintances! Oh, they 
had always known she was a lady! Wasn’t her 
ancestry stamped upon her very face? 

As for the Captain himself, his career, when 
contrasted with the humdrum life of Mulberry 
Court, was like that of a returned Columbus. 
How could he fail to be enveloped in a halo of 
fascination? For Mulberry Court was dingy and 
dull. Probably not one of its toiling throng was 


THE ROMANCE OF COTTON ioi 


destined ever to see much beyond the city’s muddy 
streets, crowded sidewalks, cheap shops, and 
seething tenements. But at least, even right here 
in Baileyville, it was possible to glimpse through 
other eyes the wonders denied them. 

Therefore when Captain Dillingham came to 
call one did the next best thing to really going to 
India — one went there by proxy and saw in im¬ 
agination white-turbaned natives, resplendent 
temples, sun-flooded tropics arched by turquoise 
skies. Even the Murphys could do that, and with¬ 
out it costing them a cent, either. The Captain 
told Julie O’Dowd stories of China while she 
ironed Joey’s dresses, and the tediousness of the 
task was forgotten in the enchantment of the tale. 
As for Grandfather Harling, after the stranger’s 
first visit he strained his ears for a second, and 
when with a cheery “Ahoy!” the knob turned 
and the small gray man entered, it seemed as if 
the very sunlight came with him. And Mrs. 
Harling welcomed his coming too for even the 
men’s talk of cargoes, commerce, shipping, and 
stevedores had its lure for her. 

In fact, all the neighborhood agreed that the 
dapper little captain “ had a way with him.” 

“ Why, he could actually talk about dried cod¬ 
fish, I do believe, and make you think there was 
nothing on earth like it! ” exclaimed Julie O’Dowd 
to Mrs. Murphy. “ I never saw such a man! And 
so kind withal. Simple as a child, too. You don’t 
catch him prating about his doings. Why, Mike 
Sullivan who went once to New York talked more 


i02 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

about it than does this critter all his circlings of 
the globe.” 

Aye, the Captain was modest. Everybody 
agreed to that. Nevertheless he certainly had at 
his tongue’s end an astonishing amount of infor¬ 
mation which came hither when occasion arose for 
him to use it. 

Carl had an illustration of that one day when 
he chanced to drop a remark about the Tartary 
lamb. 

“Tartary lamb, eh!” commented his uncle, 
catching up the phrase quickly. “ And how, pray, 
did you hear of the Tartary lamb? ” 

“ Mother told us.” 

“A funny idea, wasn’t it?” Uncle Frederick 
spoke as if Tartary lambs were topics of everyday 
conversation. “ And yet no stranger than some of 
the notions we hold now, I imagine. We do not 
know all there is to be known ourselves — not by 
a good sight — even though we do think ourselves 
very up-to-date. With all the learning the ages 
have rolled up handed to us in a bundle we should 
blush were we not better informed than poor Sir 
John Mandeville, who had no books to speak of. 
Had he been able to read Herodotus, for example, 
he would then have learned from that Greek 
writer who lived so many centuries ago that there 
was in India a wild tree having for its fruit fleeces 
finer than those of sheep; and that the natives spun 
cloth out of them and made clothing for them¬ 
selves. Herodotus tells many other interesting 
facts about cotton and its uses, too. A present, he 


THE ROMANCE OF COTTON 


103 


remarks, sent to the king of Egypt, was packed in 
cotton so that it would not get broken. That 
sounds natural, doesn’t it? He even makes our 
clever inventor, Eli Whitney, appear unoriginal 
by describing a Greek machine that separated cot¬ 
ton seeds from the fiber.” 

“ Then the cotton gin wasn’t new, after all,” 
frowned Carl. 

“The idea of it was not new, no; but the device 
Whitney and his friend Mr. Miller produced was 
a fresh method for getting this age-old result. Up 
to 1760 the same primitive ginning machine was 
used in England as had been used in India for 
many, many years. Think of that! But as civil¬ 
ization grew and people not only wove more cloth 
but made an increasing variety of kinds the de¬ 
mand for material to make it increased. And old 
Herodotus is by no means the only early historian 
to mention cotton. Other writers went into even 
more details than he, describing the plant, its 
leaves and blossoms, and telling how it was set 
out in rows. Apparently as long ago as 519 B. C. 
the Persians were spinning and weaving cloth and 
dyeing it all sorts of colors, using for the purpose 
the leaves and roots of tropical plants. It there¬ 
fore followed that when the officers of Emperor 
Alexander’s army returned from the East they 
brought back to Greece tales of the cotton plant, 
and Greeks and Romans alike began to use the 
material for awnings much as we do now.” 

“How funny!” smiled Carl. “I’ll bet they 
were glad to have something to shade them from 


io 4 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

the sun. I shouldn’t relish spending the summer 
in Greece or Italy.” 

“ I guess you wouldn’t. Baileyville may be hot 
in July but it is nothing to what Rome must have 
been. The stone seats of the Forum were like 
stove covers; and because the rich old Romans 
enjoyed comfort quite as much as anybody else, 
lengths of cotton cloth were stretched across cer¬ 
tain parts of the structure to shade it. Even your 
friend Julius Caesar was not so toughened by battle 
that he fancied having the hot sun beat down on 
his head; he therefore ordered a screening of cloth 
to be extended from the top of his house to that 
of the Capitoline Hill so when he rode hither he 
could be cool and sheltered. Oh, the Romans 
knew a good thing when they saw it — never fear! 
In the meantime Greeks and Romans alike were 
using the newly discovered material for tents, 
sails, and gay-colored coverlets.” 

“ Didn’t cotton grow in any other country 
beside India, Uncle Frederick?” interrogated 
Mary. 

“ We do not really know about that,” was her 
uncle’s reply. “ Certainly it was found in other 
places — Egypt, Africa, Mexico, and America; 
but whether it was native to these lands or had 
been transplanted to them it is impossible to say. 
We do know, however, that the ancient Egyptians 
depended chiefly on flax for their cloth and im¬ 
ported cotton from other countries, so although 
the plant did grow there they could not have had 
much of it. The little they had was cultivated, I 


THE ROMANCE OF COTTON 


105 

believe, almost entirely as a shrub and used merely 
for decoration.” 

“ But loads of cotton come from Egypt now,” 
declared Carl. “ The teacher told us so.” 

“ Indeed it does,” nodded Captain Dillingham. 
“ I have brought many a bale of it back in my ship, 
so I know.” 

“ Really!” ejaculated his listeners. 

“Yes; Egypt, India, and the United States are 
the great cotton-producing countries of the world. 
India comes first on the list; then we ourselves, 
with our vast southern crops; then Egypt. And 
it is because India raises such great quantities of 
cotton and is obliged to ship it to England for 
manufacture afterward buying it back again — 
that Gandhi and his followers who are eager for 
India to be independent of England are raising 
little patches of cotton, weaving their own cloth 
on hand looms, and refusing to purchase that of 
English make. It certainly seems fair enough 
that the wealth derived from this crop should re¬ 
main in India and not be spent for things the 
people of India do not like. However, all that 
is too big a question for you and me.” 

“ Did you ever see cotton growing, Uncle Fred¬ 
erick? ” asked Tim, who had drawn near. 

“ Oh, often, sonny. As a general thing the plant 
is like a Christmas tree in shape. The perennial 
plants, or those that come up every year, fre¬ 
quently grow to be six or eight feet tall; but the 
annual ones remain little three or four-foot bushes. 
Still each grows into pyramid form, having the 


106 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

wider branches at the bottom. The leaves are not 
unlike the lilac; and there is a deep, cup-shaped 
pod having points that turn up like fingers and 
hold the cotton in tightly. But no matter whether 
perennial or annual, the cotton plant must have 
a hot, humid climate to thrive, and if the land 
is not naturally moist it must be irrigated as it is 
in Egypt.” 

“ I thought things like cotton just grew wild, 
Uncle Frederick,” said Tim. 

“No, indeed,” laughed his uncle. “You can¬ 
not gather big crops of anything unless you are 
willing to work for them. The Lord does not 
mean to make life too easy for us. He gives us 
all these things and then He has done His part; 
we must do the rest. The world is a place of op¬ 
portunities, that is all. If we are too lazy to take 
them, or too stupid, it is our own fault. Many 
a man gets nowhere because he fails to grasp this 
idea. So, sonny, you do not get your cotton all 
grown for you, and with the seeds picked out. 
You are given the root and if you wish a big cot¬ 
ton crop you must plant seeds, or better yet set 
out cuttings, cultivate and care for the plants. 
Every minute your mind must be on the thing you 
are trying to raise. You must watch, for instance, 
for pests of insects; diseases that will spoil your 
plants; blights caused by fungi; and above all for 
sudden changes in the weather. Should it turn 
scorching hot just when your cotton shoots are up 
and beginning to spread their roots the result will 
be fatal. Or an early frost will work ruin. Some- 


THE ROMANCE OF COTTON 107 

times, you know, we have a spell of hot weather 
in the late winter that fools the growing things 
into thinking spring has come, and the poor mis¬ 
guided plants begin to put out their leaves. Then, 
like a mischievous joker, old Winter comes back 
and nips the trusting little creatures. Cotton 
doesn’t fancy that sort of joke. Nor does it like 
too much wet weather, for then the cotton gets 
damp and sodden and cannot be picked. Should 
it be gathered in this condition it would mold and 
mildew, and become a wreck.” 

“ It sounds to me as if cotton raising was pretty 
hard work,” sighed Tim. 

“ Oh, no harder than are most other things, 
Timmie,” returned Uncle Frederick. “ Gener¬ 
ally speaking cotton plants sail along safely 
enough unless a pest attacks them. That is their 
greatest menace. When a pest descends on the 
crop the grower does lose courage, I can tell you. 
It is queer to think what damage a crowd of tiny 
insects can do, isn’t it? Some of them will bore 
through the pods as if in pure spite and spoil the 
cotton fiber at the time it is just beginning to form 
— a detestable trick! Others, fattening on the 
tender green leaves near the top of the plant, will 
turn into caterpillars, creep down the stalk, and 
devour every leaf as they go along. This leaves 
the roots of the plant unprotected from the sun 
and speedily every particle of moisture on which 
the growth is so dependent is dried up. So the 
plants shrivel and die. Then there are beetles, 
locusts, grasshoppers, and all the rest of the army 


io8 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


of trouble-makers who wait to steal a march on 
the unwatchful planter. All these rebels must 
be kept their distance if you would harvest a big 
cotton crop.” 

“ I guess I never would have any cotton,” re¬ 
marked the disheartened Tim. 

“ Oh, yes, you would, son,” laughed his uncle. 
u Surely you wouldn’t let yourself be beaten by a 
lot of bugs and worms, would you? Should you 
live in a climate where cotton could be raised 
you would pitch in, fight the pests, and be as proud 
of your snowy field as many another man is. For 
when the pods are ready for gathering there is 
no prettier sight. It is like a huge bowl of pop¬ 
corn.” 

“ I’d like to see a cotton field,” ventured Mary. 

“ You’d have to go to India, the southern part 
of your own country, Australia, Brazil, Egypt, 
or the South Sea Islands then,” Captain Dil¬ 
lingham responded. “ That is, if you wanted to 
see the best of it — that which is strongest of 
fiber.” 

“ But isn’t cotton all alike?” queried the girl, 
with parted lips. 

“No, indeed, child! There are many different 
kinds of cotton. Some have seeds of one color, 
some of another; some seeds come out easily, some 
do not; some cotton is strong fibered, some is weak 
and snaps at a touch; some has long fibers and 
some short. Each variety has its name and is pecu¬ 
liar to a given country.” 

“ Oh! ” came in chorus from his audience. 


THE ROMANCE OF COTTON 109 

“ For instance, the most delicate or fine quality 
of thread is produced from the Sea Island cotton, 
and usually this type is quite expensive; it has so 
many seeds and they take up so much room in the 
pod that after they have been removed only a 
small quantity of cotton remains and that makes 
it costly. Almost every other kind gives more 
lint (or picked cotton) than does this variety. The 
Egyptian cotton is somewhat on this same order. 
India, China, Arabia, Persia, Asia Minor, Africa, 
and the Coromandel Coast all have a common 
type of plant which probably first grew in the 
latter place and was transplanted from there to 
the other countries. 

“ In Cuba a sort of cotton vine is found that 
has very large pods and a great number of seeds. 
Some of the fibers of this plant are long and some 
short. It is not a very good kind of cotton to cul¬ 
tivate because the long fibers get tangled up with 
the seeds and often break when being separated. 
Moreover the short fibers are all mixed in with 
the long. 

“ This gives you some notion of the different 
species of cotton. Were I to tell you of all the 
kinds you would be tired hearing about them. I 
myself get interested because I carry so much cot¬ 
ton in my ship — bales upon bales of it. Some¬ 
times I take cotton out from America to coun¬ 
tries that either do not have any, or do not have 
as much as they want; sometimes I bring back 
here varieties that we cannot raise in the 
South.” 


no CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“ What kind of cotton do we raise in the United 
States?” Mary asked. 

“ The bulk of our cotton is long-stapled and is 
called Georgian Upland,” was the response. 
“The whole plant is rough and hairy — leaf, 
branch, and pod. Some persons think that origi¬ 
nally it came from Mexico. However that may 
be, here it is, and although we raise some little of 
other sorts we have far more of this than anything 
else. We can thank it, too, for much of the wealth 
of this country of ours for Texas, Georgia, Ala¬ 
bama, North and South Carolina, Mississippi, 
Louisiana and Arkansas are all big cotton-grow¬ 
ing States. Florida, Tennessee, Indian Territory, 
Missouri, Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas, and Okla¬ 
homa also lie in the cotton belt and ship substan¬ 
tial crops.” 

The little man rose. 

“ I could go on talking cotton forever,” jested 
he. “ Think of a sacred cotton tree often as high 
as twenty feet, growing along the coast of the In¬ 
dian Ocean, the cotton from which is used only 
for weaving cloth for the turbans of Hindoo 
priests! And think of still another exquisitely fine 
Indian cotton called Dacca cotton that is spun and 
woven into fragile oriental muslins and Madras 
Long Cloth. It almost makes your mouth water 
to grow cotton, doesn’t it? ” 

“Well, at least you can go and see it grown, 
Uncle Frederick, and that is more than we can 
do,” piped Tim. 

“ True, sonny,” nodded the captain. “ But still 


THE ROMANCE OF COTTON 


hi 


you who stay at home and do not see it grown have 
your share in its benefits. You wear, use, and eat 
cotton products.” 

“ How? ” questioned the wondering Tim. 

“ Don’t you have cotton cloth for clothing, bed¬ 
ding, and no end of other comforts? Of course 
you do.” 

‘‘But — eating cotton — ” faltered Tim. “I 
don’t do that.” 

“ There are medicines made from the cotton 
root; cottonseed oil for cooking and to use on 
salads, you may not be aware, comes from the 
meaty kernel inside the cotton seed.” 

“ I didn’t know that,” Tim answered. 

“ Oh, cotton has many by-products,” returned 
his uncle. “ The lint that cannot be used for spin¬ 
ning is made into cotton wadding to pad quilts, 
skirts, and coat linings; and cotton waste is excel¬ 
lent for cleaning machinery. Ripe cotton fiber 
furnishes an almost pure cellulose, too.” 

“ Cotton certainly seems to do its part in the 
world,” Mary murmured thoughtfully. “ But I’m 
not sure,” added she, with a mischievous little 
smile, “ that I know just what cellulose is.” 


CHAPTER IX 


NORTH AND SOUTH 

“ WHERE do you and the Charlotte go when you 
leave here, Frederick? ” his sister inquired as the 
family sat at breakfast the next morning. 

“ New Orleans, I suppose; we touch there for 
a cargo of cotton,” was the reply. 

“ Then you’ll see the crop gathered, won’t you, 
Uncle Frederick? ” Mary put in. 

“ Hardly that, lassie,” replied her uncle kindly. 
“ All the work will be done before I arrive. 
However, I shall not mind that for I have seen 
southern cotton fields in their prime before now.” 

“ It grows everywhere in the South, doesn’t it? ” 
Mary ventured. 

“ One could hardly say that, my dear,” Captain 
Dillingham responded with a mild shake of his 
head. “ On the contrary the cotton belt of the 
United States is comparatively small considering 
the vast crops it yields.” 

“ Why don’t they make it bigger and plant more 
cotton?” questioned Tim. 

“ Cotton, as I told you, sonny, has its own ideas 
as to where it will grow. Let it be planted farther 
north than forty-five degrees and it will only thrive 
under glass; or try to cultivate it farther south 


NORTH AND SOUTH 


113 

than the thirty-five degree line and it will also balk. 
This, you see, leaves a rather narrow zone that 
answers its demands in the way of temperature 
and soil. For the kind of soil cotton likes has to 
be considered also. If the land is too sandy the 
moisture will soon dry up and the plants shrivel; 
or if there is an undue proportion of clay the ex¬ 
cess moisture will not drain off and the plants will 
run to wood and leaves. Therefore you have the 
problem of getting the right proportions of clay, 
loam and sand in a climate where the temperature 
holds practically even.” 

“ Why, I shouldn’t think any spot on earth 
would fill that bill,” grinned Carl. 

“ We do succeed in getting just such areas, how¬ 
ever,’ returned Captain Dillingham. “ North and 
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, 
Texas, Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Indian Ter¬ 
ritory, Missouri, Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas, and 
Oklahoma all contrive to answer the requirements 
to a greater or less degree. These States boast 
soils that are blends of clay, sand, and loam in the 
desired proportions; and while some of them are 
better than others both soil and temperature are 
such that cotton can be grown in them. Given 
these two assets the rest of the conundrum is up 
to the planter.” 

“ I should think most of it was answered for 
him when he has these two important factors,” 
Mrs. McGregor asserted. 

“ But to have climate and land is not enough,” 
protested her brother. “ Once he possesses the 


11 4 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

land the owner must take care of it. It cannot be 
allowed to run out but must be plowed up, ferti¬ 
lized, and the crop tended like any other farm 
product. Before cotton growers realized this, not 
much attention was paid to these laws and in con¬ 
sequence the crop of many a southern plantation 
suffered. Now cotton-raising is done far more 
scientifically. The old stalks are gathered and 
destroyed; the land is plowed and fertilized, and 
afterward seed-planting machines go up and down 
the rows, scattering five or six seeds into each 
hole, with a space of not more than a foot between 
the holes. Then the seeds are covered over lightly 
and left to sprout.” 

“ How long is it before they come up? ” inter¬ 
rogated Carl. 

“ About ten or twelve days,” was the reply. “ A 
couple of days later the first leaf appears and then 
trouble begins. April sees the Carolina planters 
thinning their shoots in order to have sturdy plants 
from which to select the ones eventually allowed 
to grow. States farther south get at the task ear¬ 
lier. After the thinning process is over the plants 
are hilled up like potatoes and the spaces between 
the rows, where the last season’s crop previously 
grew, is plowed to keep the soil open and free for 
drainage. Men afterward travel through the open 
rows hoeing up the loose soil and heaping it 
around the young plants to strengthen and protect 
them; then, since nothing more can be done imme¬ 
diately everybody takes a rest and waits.” 

“Then what happens?” piped Tim. 


NORTH AND SOUTH 


1 15 

“ Oh, after a time the same process is repeated. 
The earth by this time has become crusted over 
and must be opened up again; the hauling, too, 
takes place once more. Hauling is the name given 
to bedding up the plants with loose earth. Often 
there are four or five haulings. By July the plants 
have grown sufficiently to show which one in each 
hill is to be the most thrifty and this one is left 
to grow while the other shoots are pulled up. 
After that, given sunny days and occasional light 
showers, the crop should prosper. Should there, 
however, be too much heat, or too great a quan¬ 
tity of rain, things will not move so successfully.” 

“ How long does cotton have to grow before it 
is ready for picking? ” asked Carl. 

“ The plants bloom approximately the middle 
of June — sometimes earlier, sometimes later, ac¬ 
cording to the climates of the various States. Two 
months after that the crop is ready to be gathered. 
You must not, however, run away with the notion 
that cotton-picking is a hurried process. Often 
it goes on from the end of August until into No¬ 
vember or December. It is a long-drawn-out, 
tedious, monotonous task. Whole families join in 
the harvesting for since there is always some low 
and some tall cotton (some annual and some per¬ 
ennial varieties) the children can share with their 
elders in the work and thus earn quite a sum of 
money. In fact, in the old days before child labor 
laws protected the kiddies, and while cotton-pick¬ 
ing was done by slaves, many a poor little mite 
toiled cruelly long in the fields. Even the older 


ii 6 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


negroes were driven with whips and compelled 
to keep at work until utterly exhausted.” 

His audience gasped. 

“Yes,” nodded their uncle, “I am afraid that 
urged forward by the desire to garner a big crop 
before rain should fall and spoil it, the cotton 
growers practiced much cruelty. No doubt, too, 
the same tyranny reigned in India. Wherever 
work must be done by hand and labor is cheap 
and plentiful, human beings come to be classed 
to a great extent as machines. Plantation owners 
become so interested in the money they are to 
make that they forget everything else. Of course 
labor was never as cheap in our Southern States 
even during slave days as in India and therefore 
until the advent of the cotton gin cotton was not 
one of our valuable crops.” 

“ You mean because the seeds had to be picked 
out by hand? ” Carl said. 

“ Yes. There was, to be sure, the primitive kind 
of gin resorted to in India for cleaning certain 
black-seed varieties. Two kinds of this black- 
seed, or long-stapled cotton, grew in the Sea 
Islands and along the coast from Delaware to 
Georgia; but it could not be made to thrive away 
from the moist ocean climate. Hence on inland 
plantations a different and more vigorous variety 
of plant (one having green seeds and short staples) 
was propagated. This kind was known as Upland 
cotton. It was a troublesome product for the plant¬ 
ers, I assure you, for its many seeds clung so 
tightly to the lint that it was almost out of the 


NORTH AND SOUTH 


117 

question to remove them. The simple little gin 
copied from India and successfully used on the 
black seed variety was entirely impracticable on 
this Upland growth since it tore the fibers all to 
bits.” 

“They did need a cotton gin, didn’t they!” 
Carl ejaculated. 

“ Very badly, indeed,” agreed Captain Dilling¬ 
ham. “Well, the only substitute for machinery 
was fingers; and when I tell you that it often took 
an entire day to get out of a three-pound batch of 
cotton a pound or so that was clear of seeds you 
will understand what a slow process it was.” 

“ At that rate I shouldn’t think it would have 
paid anybody to raise cotton,” sniffed Carl. 

“ It didn’t,” returned his uncle. “ Moreover it 
rendered the product very expensive, for it re¬ 
quired a great number of slaves to clean any con¬ 
siderable quantity of cotton. I often think of the 
toil and misery that went into the cotton-growing 
of those slavery days. After working for a long 
stretch of hours in the blazing sun the negroes 
came in at night worn out. But were they allowed 
to rest? Perhaps some of them who had consid¬ 
erate owners were; but many, many others less 
fortunate were set to picking out seeds and lest 
they fall asleep at their task overseers prodded 
them with whips.” 

“ Gee!” 

“ That was slavery, son,” declared Captain Dil¬ 
lingham. “ Do you wonder that Abraham Lin¬ 
coln thought it would be worth even a war to rid 


118 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


this country of such an evil? Understand, I am 
not condemning all slave owners. Undoubtedly 
there were kind and humane ones just as there are 
to this day employers who are fair with their help. 
But urged on by commercial greed the temptation 
of the planters was to force the slaves to do more 
than was right, and as a result a great deal of 
cruelty was practiced. Had the primitive method 
of picking cotton by hand continued it is probable 
that slavery might have died a natural death with¬ 
out recourse to war, for many of the Southerners 
were reaching a point where the returns from cot¬ 
ton and tobacco were not sufficient to feed the 
army of slaves that swarmed over the plantations. 
To use a common phrase the slaves were eating 
their heads off. It was just at this juncture, how¬ 
ever, that Eli Whitney came along with his cotton 
gin and in a twinkling the South became revolu¬ 
tionized and the problem of the legion of idle, 
profitless slaves was settled. They would now be 
idle and profitless no longer. Vast quantities of 
cotton could henceforth be planted and the negroes 
could cultivate and gather it. With Eli Whit¬ 
ney’s gin to do the slow and hindering part of the 
process cotton-raising could be made a paying in¬ 
dustry.” 

“ Mr. Whitney bobbed up in the very nick of 
time, didn’t he? ” smiled Mary. 

“ For the financial prosperity of the South he 
did,” her uncle responded. “ But to the welfare 
of the negroes his advent was a fatal stroke. 
Slaves immediately were more in demand than 


NORTH AND SOUTH 119 

they ever had been before. No mechanical de¬ 
vice could take their place. Cotton must be 
planted, cultivated, and harvested by hand and 
the larger the cotton fields became, the harder the 
slaves were worked. The cotton crop became the 
staple product of the South. Many a Southerner 
who took up arms against the Union did so be¬ 
cause he honestly believed that to free the slaves 
would mean the economic ruin of his section of 
the country.” 

“ I never thought of that side of the question 
before,” Mrs. McGregor murmured thoughtfully. 

“Nor I,” rejoined Carl. 

“ Nevertheless it is a fact none of us here in the 
North should forget,” continued Captain Dilling¬ 
ham. “ To the southern planter our point of view 
appeared unfair and grossly one-sided. It was 
easy enough for the North to say the slaves should 
be freed. They had no cotton fields and their 
prosperity was not dependent on the negroes. But 
to let the slaves go meant ruin for the South. It 
was not alone, you see, that their owners wished 
the profit derived from buying and selling them; 
they needed them to work. Never had the South 
had such an opportunity to coin wealth as that 
now opening. What wonder its residents were 
angry at having this dazzling prospect for fortune¬ 
making snatched away? Remember and take 
these facts into consideration when you think 
harshly of those who took up arms to defend 
slavery.” 

There was an instant’s pause. 


i2o CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“ Of course, however, none of this justifies slav¬ 
ery or makes it more right. The entire principle 
of it was wrong; it was un-Christian, unjust, and 
cruel, and the only honorable thing to do was to 
bring it to an end in this country. But that is an¬ 
other story altogether. What we are talking about 
now is the cotton itself; and to get a big view of 
this subject it is well to consider what was happen¬ 
ing in the world just at this time, and why cotton 
was such a desirable commodity. 

“Over across the ocean James Watts’s steam 
engine, combined with the flying shuttle of John 
Kay, the spinning jenny of Hargreaves, the water- 
frame of Arkwright, and the self-acting loom of 
Crompton, was working as great a revolution in 
England’s cloth-making industry as Eli Whitney’s 
cotton gin had done in the South. In other words 
the hand loom had been supplanted by the more 
modern device of the steam-driven spinning mill. 
This meant that in future cloth would no longer 
be made in small quantities in the homes, women 
of the families spinning the thread and weaving 
it whenever they could steal a bit of time from 
other household duties. No! Cloth was to be 
made in factories on a much larger scale, and sold 
to the public.” 

“No wonder the fact set everybody to raising 
cotton!” declared Mrs. McGregor. 

“No wonder indeed!” nodded her brother. 
“ From a vintage so small that even President Jef¬ 
ferson scarcely knew America had a cotton crop 
at all this product of the South leaped forward by 


NORTH AND SOUTH 


12 I 


bounds. The year preceding Eli Whitney’s in¬ 
vention the United States exported less than one 
hundred and forty thousand bales; but the year 
afterward the shipment had soared to nearly half 
a million. The following year it was a million 
and a half; the year after that six million.” 

“ Gee whizz!” commented Carl. “That was 
some record, wasn’t it? ” 

“Rather!” agreed his uncle. 

“ How much do we export now, Uncle Fred¬ 
erick? ” Mary asked. 

“ From nine to twelve million bales of five-hun¬ 
dred pounds each are raised annually in the 
South,” returned Captain Dillingham. “ Of this 
about ninety per cent, is Upland cotton, the green 
seeds of which have to be taken out by a gin similar 
to the one Eli Whitney invented./ Approximately 
about half this vast crop is exported.” 

“ I had no idea we raised so much cotton,” 
mused Carl. 

“We raise quantities of it, son,” Uncle Fred¬ 
erick said. “ Now you can understand better why 
the South was so resentful at being compelled to 
free the slaves. With cotton so much in demand 
the prices of slaves had greatly increased. The 
planters had untold wealth almost within their 
grasp. It was all very well for the North to assert 
that slavery was a barbarous practise. Who was 
to tend the cotton fields when the slaves were 
gone? ” 

“The South did have something on its side, 
didn’t it? ” Mary ventured. 


122 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“ A great deal, when once you put yourself in 
the Southerner’s place. We in the North are liable 
to emphasize only the cruelty of slavery and are 
often unable to understand how enlightened and 
Christian men could keep slaves and fight to keep 
them. You see there were reasons.” 

Mary nodded. 

“ Of course, as I said before, all the cotton-rais¬ 
ing in the world could not make the thing right. 
It was wrong from start to finish. Nevertheless 
it does explain why some of our people felt the 
freeing of the slaves so unjust and such a blow to 
their prosperity that they threatened secession from 
the Union.” 

“ And it was because Abraham Lincoln would 
not allow them to secede that the war was fought! ” 
announced Carl triumphantly. 

“ Precisely! You cannot allow part of a coun¬ 
try to rise up and walk out any more than you can 
let some of the wheels of a watch announce they 
are not going to turn any more,” laughed his uncle. 
“It requires every part to make the watch go; 
and it takes the united strength of a people to 
make a nation. North and South were all be¬ 
loved children of one land, and Abraham Lincoln, 
like the father of a big family, was not going to 
let any of the household break away from the or¬ 
ganization to which it belonged. It meant a 
struggle to do the two things necessary — free the 
slaves and preserve the Union; but quarrels are 
sometimes necessary in families. After they are 
over there is a more perfect understanding. So 


NORTH AND SOUTH 


123 


it has been with this one. Both sides paid a fear¬ 
ful price but as a result we now have one nation, 
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” 

“ That’s the oath of allegiance! ” cried Carl, 
Mary, and Tim in chorus, as they leaped to their 
feet and stood at salute. 

“ We say it at school every morning,” continued 
Tim, “ but I never knew before what it meant.” 

“ You will know better now, won’t you? ” Cap¬ 
tain Dillingham replied. “ Every time you say 
those words remember the brave men of the South 
who really believed they had a right to establish 
a government of their own and protect the pros¬ 
perity of their part of this great land. If you do 
this you will learn to honor both sides alike, each 
of which fought so devotedly for the cause he 
cherished. And now that the war is over the en¬ 
tire country has the South to thank for one of its 
greatest sources of wealth — cotton. The South 
raises it; the North, with its many mills, trans¬ 
forms the raw product into a finished commodity. 
How is that for team work? Could there be bet¬ 
ter proof of how vitally each section needs the 
other?” 


CHAPTER X 


A LESSON IN THRIFT 

That evening Carl resumed the cotton-raising 
subject by idly remarking, “ I suppose since the 
invention of the cotton gin and the abolition of 
slavery most of the drudgery connected with the 
cotton industry has disappeared.” 

His uncle smiled. 

“ Hardly that, I am afraid, sonny,” replied he. 
“ Even under the best possible conditions the cul¬ 
tivation and gathering of the cotton crop entails 
drudgery. This cannot be helped. In the first 
place cotton demands steady heat to make it grow; 
and you know what it means to work all day in 
the broiling sun. Of course the negroes are to a 
certain degree accustomed to this; and moreover 
they belong to a race that finds hot weather less 
hard to bear than do many other persons. Never¬ 
theless heat is heat, and say what you may, a hot 
sun pouring down on one’s head does not make 
for comfort. In addition there is the monotony 
of the harvesting. As I told you before, this has 
to be done by hand — there is no escape from 
that; and since it must be, the dullness of the task 
is an unavoidable evil.” 

Carl mused thoughtfully for a moment. 


A LESSON IN THRIFT 


125 


“ I don’t see,” observed he presently, “ that after 
all the negroes are much better off than they were 
in slave days.” 

“ Oh, yes, they are,” Captain Dillingham in¬ 
stantly responded. “ Remember they now receive 
wages; their hours of work have also been short¬ 
ened and regulated; and overseers have become 
more humane and now invent little ways of break¬ 
ing the monotony and making the time pass more 
pleasantlv.” 

“ How? ” 

“ Oh, there are various things that can be done 
to achieve this end. Sometimes fresh buttermilk 
or some other refreshing drink is passed down the 
rows; or on a cool day hot coffee is served. Any 
little change such as singing or whistling inter¬ 
rupts the sleepy effect of one continual process 
and shifts the mood and spirits of those toiling 
into another groove. This is very beneficial. All 
our students of industrial methods will tell you 
that the worst flaw of our present system is the 
effect monotony has on the minds of those con¬ 
stantly subjected to it. Performing without devia¬ 
tion the same mechanical act day after day 
deadens the brain and even, in certain cases, pro¬ 
duces insanity. It also kills ambition and creates 
hopeless, indifferent persons. Therefore, made 
wiser by psychology we realize the importance of 
stirring the mind out of a fixed rut, or rather a 
stupidity that verges on somnambulism, and keep¬ 
ing it alert and active. Sheep growers, for ex¬ 
ample, try in every way to divert the minds of their 


126 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

shepherds lest the continual watching of a slowly 
moving flock paralyze their minds and get them 
locoed .” 

“ Really? ” 

“Your mother will tell you that. That is why 
a shepherd’s pipe is such a splendid thing. To pick 
out a tune and listen to it starts the mind out of 
its trance and promotes mental exercise. It does 
what gymnastics do for the body.” 

“ But all our factories keep men at a single 
task,” Carl objected. 

“You mean the piece-work system? Aye, I 
know,” nodded his uncle. “ And as we grow 
wiser, and come to care more for our fellows, we 
begin to wonder whether so much specializing is 
as fine a notion as we at first thought it. It 
makes for efficiency, for without question a man. 
who does just one thing over and over becomes 
expert at his particular job; but does he not in 
time, because of his very expertness, lapse into a 
machine whose hands move automatically and 
whose mind is idle? Such a result is fatal both 
to his intellect and his will. He becomes passive 
until at length all initiative is destroyed. For 
many years the colored people of the South reaped 
precisely this harvest of mental inertia. Now, 
thank heaven, they are rousing out of the lethargy 
that has been their inheritance and their brains are 
getting to work. It will, however, take years, 
perhaps generations, for some of them to work up 
to a normal mental activity and intelligence; but 
if they persist results will surely come. Many of 


A LESSON IN THRIFT 


127 


them have already shaken off their intellectual fet¬ 
ters so that not only are their bodies free but their 
minds are also. That is why I feel that all our 
citizens should do everything in their power to 
help them, and try and make up to them for the 
injustices they have suffered. It is not enough to 
take them out of physical slavery; we should break 
the chains of their mental imprisonment as well 
by giving them schools, trades, and such other 
training as is within their mental scope.” 

“ I’m afraid I never thought of the negroes that 
way,” confessed Carl. 

“ A great many persons older than you do not,” 
Captain Dillingham returned kindly. “ But when 
you do think of them from that angle you cannot 
but honor the more highly those colored persons 
who have achieved positions of importance. 
There are now in our country colored lawyers, 
doctors, teachers, poets, and writers. Who can 
tell what their background has been or measure 
the mental exertion that has brought them where 
they are to-day? Wherever we meet them we 
should give them a hand up. We owe it to them 
because of our own greater opportunity.” 

The little man stopped to light his pipe. 

“Now see where talking about picking cotton 
has led me,” grumbled he whimsically. “ A 
pretty distance I’ve wandered from my subject! 
Well, you mustn’t touch me off on the topic of the 
colored race again. I have seen many abuses of 
the negroes in my day, both on shipboard and 
ashore, and the subject turns me hot. Just how; 


128 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


the evils of cotton-gathering are to be avoided I 
do not know. We must wait, I fear, until some 
clever individual bobs up with a scheme that does 
away with hand harvesting of cotton. In the 
meantime the only remedy left us is to vary the 
work of the men and women who toil at it as 
much as is possible.’’ 

“ I wish, Uncle Frederick, you would tell us 
just how the cotton is gathered,” said Mary, who 
had joined the group. 

Captain Dillingham flashed the girl one of his 
rare smiles. 

“ I don’t know, my dear, just how much more 
there is to tell,” declared he. “ Of course, if you 
have ever picked currants or blackberries you will 
realize something of the constant bending and 
stooping that goes with the industry and will un¬ 
derstand how hard it is on the back. Then there 
is the continual standing, a tiresome business at 
best. Besides, mechanically as the task is rated, it 
is not such an easy one after all, for the cotton 
fibers stick firmly to the inside of the pods and as 
a result the unskilled person who tries to detach 
them in a hurry will probably succeed only in ex¬ 
tricating a bare half of what is inside. And like 
as not he will break the fibers he does get out so 
that their value will be sadly decreased. The 
trade has its tricks, you see. Furthermore an ama¬ 
teur generally has fragments of husks and leaves 
scattered through his cotton, all of which have to 
be removed and make extra work later on.” 

“ Then cotton-gathering is not really such brain- 



” The cotton is sent to factories to be ginned 

Page 129. 


11 















































































































































































































































A LESSON IN THRIFT 


129 

less work as it might be, is it, Uncle Frederick,” 
Mary asserted. 

“ Oh, it requires a knack that comes through 
practice,” conceded her uncle quickly. “ As soon 
as the pods crack open and show white it is a 
sign the workers must be on hand for the picking, 
and early in the morning they assemble that they 
may have a long day to work while the sun is on 
the crop. For as I told you there can be no cot¬ 
ton-harvesting without sun to dry off the night’s 
moisture. The moment a bag or basket is filled 
it is emptied into something larger and the picker 
starts afresh. Before evening comes and the dew 
falls, the day’s crop is hurried under cover that 
it may not absorb any dampness. Here it is packed 
into receptacles banded with the owner’s name or 
private mark, and made ready to be carried to the 
ginning factory.” 

“ Don’t the planters have their own cotton 
gins?” queried Carl in surprise. 

“ Oh no, son! That would be an unnecessary 
and expensive luxury. Just as com is sent to the 
miller to be ground, so the cotton is sent to fac¬ 
tories to be ginned, weighed, and baled for ship¬ 
ment. You see the cotton grown on any one planta¬ 
tion and cultivated under uniform conditions will 
be practically of the same ripeness and weight; it 
will also be, in all probability, of the same variety. 
This fact is important when ginning and selling 
it, and greatly increases its value. Such conditions, 
however, do not always prevail for there are dis¬ 
tricts (and also countries) where small cotton 


I 3 0 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

farms exist whose output is not large enough to 
make an entire bale. In such cases the product of 
several farms has to be combined and this makes 
a bale mixed in quality. This is true of part of 
the cotton that comes from India. There many of 
the natives, owing to lack of commercial and in¬ 
dustrial enterprise, raise small batches of cotton. 
Often it takes a great many of these little lots to 
make up a bale.” 

“ Do the natives of India take the seeds out of 
their own cotton?” asked Mary. 

“ Some of them do, using the primitive gins so 
long known in India. The Chinese also gin much 
of their own cotton by amateur gins. But it goes 
without saying that much of the cotton fiber is 
broken by these methods. For the more perfect 
the gin the less loss results. Even with our best 
machinery however, a certain amount of injury is 
done which cannot be avoided.” 

“ Then Eli Whitney’s gin isn’t so perfect,” ven¬ 
tured Carl. 

“ Its method is as perfect a one as we have,” 
answered Captain Dillingham, “ and up to date 
nothing better has been found. Those handling 
large quantities of cotton are almighty thankful to 
have anything as good, I can tell you. In India, 
China, and oriental countries, though, where the 
lots are small the people, as I say, still cling to 
their primitive foot gins. Here in America we 
have several types of gin all made on the same 
general principle but differing slightly as to de¬ 
tail. Some of these are better than others. By 


A LESSON IN THRIFT 


131 

this I mean some are less brutal and cause a 
smaller degree of waste. Indeed I believe Whit¬ 
ney’s own gin and those of its kind known as saw 
gins are considered to do the most damage to the 
fiber. This sort of gin consists of a series of cir¬ 
cular saws set into a revolving shaft in such a way 
that the cotton fed into the machine is separated 
from its seeds in an incredibly short space of time. 
Afterward a whirling brush cleans the saws of 
the fiber clinging to them. It is an effectual sys¬ 
tem but a merciless one and is best adapted to 
short staple cotton which is strong and does not 
snarl. The best gins use only long, smooth blades 
to clear the cotton and it follows that these do the 
fiber far less injury.” 

“ How does a ginning factory look, Uncle Fred¬ 
erick? ” Carl inquired. 

“ You mean the ins-ide? I never went through 
but one. I was waiting for a cargo at Norfolk 
once and as there happened to be a ginning plant 
near where I was staying I visited it. Generally 
speaking I suppose they are pretty much alike. 
The cotton is brought to them, as I said, in clearly 
marked, or branded bags or baskets, and is tossed 
from the wagons directly into hoppers. After¬ 
ward the contents of the hoppers is loaded into 
freight elevators and shot to one of the upper 
stories of the factory, there to be piled up and 
await its turn for ginning. 

“ When the time comes to gin that particular 
batch it is heaped into a hopper and borne to the 
gins below by means of traveling racks.” 


i 3 2 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ How many gins are there to a factory? ” ques¬ 
tioned Mary. 

“ That depends on the size of the factory and 
the amount of work brought there to be done,” 
was the reply. “ A fair-sized factory in a busy 
district will have half-a-dozen gins or more; and 
when you know that one gin will clean from three 
hundred to three hundred and fifty pounds of cot¬ 
ton an hour you will see that it will take a pretty 
big supply to keep such a lot of machinery moving. 
There is a separate hopper for each gin and if 
the supply fed into it comes too fast it can be 
stopped and switched to other gins. Once in the 
clutch of the relentless knives the cotton is 
shredded apart and the seeds drop out and fall 
into a traveling basket. From this basket they 
are forced through a tube to an oil mill which 
usually stands in another part of the grounds.” 

“Cottonseed oil!” murmured Mary, recogniz¬ 
ing an old friend. “ We often use it to fry things. 
It’s good on lettuce, too. But somehow I never 
thought that it was really made from the seeds of 
cotton.” 

“ We often accept terms without thinking much 
about them, don’t we?” Captain Dillingham 
agreed. “ But cottonseed oil is a genuine by-prod¬ 
uct of cotton.” 

“ What is a by-product? ” smiled Mary ingenu¬ 
ously. 

“ A by-product is something made from the 
leavings,” put in Carl without hesitation. “ Hash 
is a by-product of corned beef.” 


A LESSON IN THRIFT 


133 


A laugh greeted the assertion. 

“ Technically speaking a by-product is some¬ 
thing that is turned to account from what would 
otherwise have been waste. Every person who 
manufactures on a large scale tries to think what 
he can do with what is left after he has made the 
thing he started out to make. This he does for 
two reasons: first he wishes to turn back into 
money every ounce of material for which he has 
paid; secondly he desires to get rid of stuff which 
would otherwise accumulate and (if not combus¬ 
tible) force him into the added expense of carting 
it away. In other words he seeks to convert his 
waste into an asset instead of a liability. There¬ 
fore all big producers tax their brains to invent 
things that can be made from their waste, and such 
commodities are called by-products. Many of 
these things require no ingenuity for frequently 
they are articles much needed in other trades. Ma¬ 
sons, for example, are only too thankful to have 
the hair taken from tanned leather to hold their 
plaster together; and those who dry and salt fish 
can easily turn the fish skins into glue. The by¬ 
products of great packing houses and tanneries 
are legion. Often such dealers will have at hand 
such a supply of useable stuff that they will estab¬ 
lish other factories where their unused materials 
can be converted into cash. The sale of these 
products often increases very materially the profits 
of a business. Such a product is cottonseed oil. 
As millions more seeds mature each year than can 
possibly be used for planting why not turn them 


134 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


to account? Often there are from sixty-five to 
seventy-five pounds of seeds to a hundred pounds 
of cotton. Think how rapidly they would accu¬ 
mulate if something could not be done with them. 
During the war when we were unable to get olive 
oil from Italy and fats of all kinds were scarce we 
were thankful enough to fall back on the cotton¬ 
seed oil made in our own country. At the oil 
mills machines are ready to clean the cotton seeds 
of lint, hull them, separate hull from kernel, and 
press the oil from the kernel itself. This oil is 
then bottled, labelled, and shipped for sale, mak¬ 
ing quite an independent little industry, you see. 
What is left of the crushed kernels is removed from 
the hydraulic presses and is remolded into small 
cakes to be used for— ” he paused, glancing quiz¬ 
zically toward Carl and Mary. 

“ For what? ” the boy asked. 

“ Guess! ” 

“ I’ve not the most remote idea,” Carl returned. 

“Nor I!” echoed Mary. 

“ For cattle to eat,” went on Captain Dilling¬ 
ham, completing his unfinished sentence. 

“ Even the hulls,” he continued, “ are, I believe, 
utilized in some way; and as I previously told you 
the lint which clings to the seeds is passed through 
a second sort of gin, gathered into a bundle, and 
afterward put through a carding engine which 
combs it out and prepares it so it can be made into 
wadding for coverlids, quilted linings, and quilted 
petticoats. All the gins then collect whatever ma¬ 
terial is left and this, being absolutely too poor 


A LESSON IN THRIFT 


i35 

for any other purpose, is sold as cotton waste to be 
used for cleaning machinery and polishing brass 
and nickel trimmings. Were we individuals half 
as thrifty as are manufacturers in salvaging the 
odds and ends that come our way we might save 
ourselves many a penny. Every year we Amer¬ 
icans throw away enough food and wearing ap¬ 
parel to maintain a small army. We are, alas, a 
very wasteful people and are constantly becoming 
more so. Our ancestors used to lay aside buttons, 
string, papers, scraps of cloth and use them again. 
They made over clothing, fashioned rag rugs, con¬ 
served everything they could lay hands on. Their 
attics were museums where were horded every sort 
of object against the time when it might be needed. 
But do we follow their example? No, indeed! 
In fact, we go to the other extreme and hurry out 
of the house, either to a junk dealer or a rummage 
sale, everything we cannot find immediate use for. 
To a certain extent our mode of living has forced 
us to this course. Most of us reside in cramped 
city quarters where there are no spacious attics in 
which to garner up articles against a rainy day. 
Modern apartment dwellers boast neither attic nor 
cellar, to say nothing of a farmer’s barn loft. 
Moreover, we all must scramble so fast to earn 
our daily bread that we have no time to make over 
the old; it is cheaper, we reason, to purchase new 
than to fuss with remodelling. Neither are ma¬ 
terials what they were in the old days. Few of the 
fine old silks and woolens that would wear for a 
generation are to be had at present. Also we have 


136 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

more money than our forebears and this has much 
to do with our wholesale wastefulness. With 
plenty of everything at hand, why save? And the 
policy the individual is following on a small scale 
the nation is adopting on a much vaster one. We 
are using up our forests, our mines, all our re¬ 
sources with no thought of the morrow. We 
ought to stop and think about this before it is too 
late but I doubt if we ever will.” 

Captain Dillingham paused. 

“ There is such a thing,” he added, u as people 
and nations being too prosperous for their own 
good. But to return to the cotton gin. The cot¬ 
ton, having been cleared of its seeds, is now known 
as lint, and this is bundled together until enough 
of it is collected to be properly baled for the spin¬ 
ning mills.” 

“ What is proper baling?” inquired Carl. 

“ Why, the rough baling simply gathers the cot¬ 
ton together into a big bundle.” 

“ Well, what’s the matter with that? ” 

“ Nothing — so far as it goes,” laughed the Cap¬ 
tain. “1 should be sorry, however, to see many 
such bales coming aboard my ship.” 

“Why?” 

“ Well, you know what cotton is,” answered 
Uncle Frederick. “After it has been picked to 
pieces in the gins it comes out a nice, white, fluffy 
mass that takes up no end of room. Were it to be 
transported in this condition a few hundred pounds 
of it would fill a ship or freight car and cost the 
owner so much that it would not be worth his while 


A LESSON IN THRIFT 


i37 


to transport it. Moreover, it would be bothersome 
to handle when it arrived at the spinning mills. 
Therefore before cotton is shipped it has to be re¬ 
duced in bulk so that it will not take up so much 
space.” 

“ But how can it be, Uncle Frederick? ” asked 
Mary, open-eyed. 

“ What do you do when you wish to make some 
soft material into a small parcel, my dear? ” 

“ Oh, roll it up — squeeze it together,” was the 
instant response. 

“ Well, there you have your answer! ” responded 
Uncle Frederick. “ Balers treat cotton lint in the 
same fashion; only, as they are not strong enough 
to accomplish this end with their hands, they re¬ 
sort to powerful machines, or compressors, to carry 
out the process for them. By means of enormous 
pressure they crush down the billowing lint until 
four feet of it can be reduced to a thickness of not 
more than seven inches.” 

“I wouldn’t want to fall into that machine!” 
chuckled Carl. 

“ There wouldn’t be much left of you if you 
should, I can assure you of that,” Captain Dilling¬ 
ham said. “ Cotton, however, does not raise any 
such protest. It is pressed and pressed and pressed, 
and while still in the presses iron bands are put 
round it to hold it so it can be compactly trans¬ 
ported. An American bale of some five hundred 
pounds will usually have six or seven of these iron 
bands round it. Certain of these bales are merely 
rough ones; others are cylindrical. I believe the 


i 3 8 carl and the cotton gin 

latter sort are more generally preferred. To make 
them the cotton is gradually pressed and rolled by 
powerful presses until a bale four feet long and 
about two feet through is obtained. These cylin¬ 
drical bales weigh a trifle less than the others — 
about four hundred and twenty-six pounds — and 
because they have been pressed so hard they keep 
in place without either iron bands or cloth covers. 
When they arrive at the mills the cotton from them 
can be unrolled and much more easily fed into the 
machines. If they are covered it is merely to keep 
them clean.” 

“ Do all bales of cotton have to weigh the 
same?” inquired Carl. 

“ You mean is there a standardized weight for 
all bales? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ No, there is no universal standard for bales 
of cotton. The bales from different countries dif¬ 
fer quite considerably. For example a Brazilian 
bale usually weighs only from a hundred and sev¬ 
enty-five to two hundred and twenty pounds; the 
Turkish from two hundred and fifty to three hun¬ 
dred and twenty-five pounds; those coming from 
India do better, averaging about three hundred 
and ninety pounds. Should you handle this im¬ 
ported cotton you would notice that the bales from 
India are very heavily banded, often as many as 
thirteen bands encircling them. This is partly be¬ 
cause the long staple of this variety of cotton must 
not be injured by heavy pressure, and partly be¬ 
cause they have not in India the excellent facilities 


A LESSON IN THRIFT 


i39 


for compressing lint that we have here. The Egyp¬ 
tian bales are the largest transported; they run as 
high as seven hundred pounds and have about 
eleven bands to hold them.” 

“ It must be a stunt to get them aboard ship,” 
grinned Carl. 

“ I’ve taken my turn at the job,” responded the 
captain drily. “ We swing them down into the 
hold by means of cranes and have now learned to 
land them quite neatly. Nevertheless, even though 
they are only bundles of cotton wool I should not 
fancy having one of them drop on my head,” con¬ 
cluded he with a twinkle. 


CHAPTER XI 


A FAMILY CONGRESS 

Meantime while the McGregors discussed cot¬ 
ton and the sunny southern fields in which it grew, 
Christmas was approaching and Baileyville, 
shrouded in wintry whiteness, began to feel the 
pulse of the coming holiday. Shop windows along 
the main street were gay with holly and scarlet. 
Every alluring object was displayed to entice pur¬ 
chasers and such objects as were not alluring were 
made to appear so by a garnish of ribbon or flash¬ 
ing tinsel. There were Christmas carpet sweepers, 
Christmas teakettles, Christmas coal hods and how 
surprised and embarrassed they must have been to 
find themselves dragged out of their modest cor¬ 
ners and, arrayed in splendor, set forth before the 
public gaze. Nothing was too mundane to be 
transformed by the holiday’s magic into a thing 
mystic and unreal. Even such a prosaic article as 
a washtub, borrowing luster from the season’s 
witchery and in shining blue dress became a thing 
to covet and dream about. 

Then there was the army of foolish trifles that 
owed their existence merely to the season’s glamor 
and would have had no excuse for being at a time 


A FAMILY CONGRESS 141 

when the purchaser’s head was level and his judg¬ 
ment sane. And in addition to all these there were 
the scores upon scores of gifts useful, fascinating, 
desirable, but beyond range of possibility at any 
ordinary period of the year. 

Oh, it was a time to keep one’s balance, the 
Christmas holidays! The very stones of the streets 
glistened golden and the crisp air breathed en¬ 
chantment. If one’s nerves were not frayed and 
on edge he jostled his neighbor with a smile and 
took his share of jostling in good part. Was not 
every man a brother; and did not a great throbbing 
kindliness emanate from all humanity? 

It seemed so to Carl McGregor as the wonder¬ 
ful day of days drew near; and so also it seemed 
to all the wee McGregors. They were on tiptoe 
with excitement and could hardly be made to stand 
still long enough to have their neckties tied or their 
pinafores buttoned. 

“ Have you children decided yet what you want 
to do?” questioned their mother one morning, as 
she struggled to hold the wriggling Tim until his 
hair could be made presentable for school. 
“ Christmas is but a week away now and we 
must come to some decision as to our plans. 
We can’t have everything, you know. Shall it 
be a turkey and no tree? Or shall it be a tree 
and no turkey? And if it is a tree shall it be 
a big or a little one? We must vote on all these 
questions.” 

“ I want ice-teem,” lisped Nell. 

“ Mercy on us! ” ejaculated Mrs. McGregor, in 


142 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

consternation, as this fresh avenue for outlay pre¬ 
sented itself. “ Nell is for ice cream and a tree 
too.” 

“And turkey!” went on the little one imper¬ 
turbably. “ Me wants turkey! ” 

“Ice-treem! Ice-treem!” cooed James Fred¬ 
erick. 

The mother’s face clouded. A tree, turkey, ice 
cream and presents were far beyond the range of 
the family purse. 

“ I’d rather have stockings and turkey,” Mary 
declared. 

“ And cranberry sauce and nuts,” put in Tim. 

“ And celery and sweet potatoes,” added Carl. 
“ A real dinner, Mother.” 

“ Would you rather do that than have the tree? ” 

Silence greeted the question. 

Into every mind flashed the picture of a tree 
towering to the ceiling and a-glitter with lights 
and ornaments. Even Carl, despite his fourteen 
years, could not entirely banish the vision. But 
the dinner, the dinner! After all the tree would 
only be a thing to look at; food could be eaten and 
enjoyed, and Carl was a healthy boy at an age when 
he was possessed of a particularly healthy appetite. 
Tempting as was the tree the aroma of browned 
turkey rose in his nostrils. 

“ I vote for turkey,” announced he at last. 

“No tree? No Christmas tree?” murmured 
Martin, his lip quivering. 

“You have a tree at kindergarten, silly, and so 
does Nell,” declared the elder brother quickly. 


A FAMILY CONGRESS 


i43 

“ ’Tain’t like having it here — our really own 
tree,” bewailed Martin. 

“ Couldn’t we have a simpler dinner, Mother, 
and manage to get a tree? ” interrogated Mary. 
“ It is fun to trim it and the little children love 
it so.” 

“ Girls always like things that look pretty,” 
piped Tim in disdain. 

“ And all boys care about is to eat and eat,” 
Mary shot out with equal scorn. 

Hidden away in a corner behind his newspaper 
Captain Dillingham chuckled. He was vastly 
amused by this family congress. 

Meantime Mrs. McGregor, in order to avert 
the battle she saw rising, said, “ Suppose we 
put it to vote. Are you ready for the ques¬ 
tion? ” 

“Yes!” responded her flock in chorus. 

“ All right. Shall it be presents and turkey, 
or presents and a tree?” 

“ I want mince pie,” proclaimed Martin flatly. 

“ But we are not talking of pie, dear,” answered 
his mother patiently. “ It is the turkey we’re vot¬ 
ing on.” 

“ I want turkey and a tree and presents and ice- 
teem and pie!” Nell asserted shamelessly. 

“Stockings and turkey, Ma! Stockings and 
turkey!” shouted Carl. 

“Listen, dears!” began their mother. “As I 
told you before we can’t have everything. I wish 
we could but we just plain can’t, so that ends it. 
Therefore we must chose what we think we will 


144 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

get the most pleasure out of. Now who is for 
turkey? Raise your hands!” 

Every hand came up. 

“And who is for a tree?” 

Again every hand was raised. 

Helplessly Mrs. McGregor sank back into her 
chair. 

“ Oh, dear,” sighed she. “ Don’t you see we 
are getting nowhere? I told you only a minute 
ago we couldn’t have both.” 

Uncle Frederick came out from behind his 
paper. 

“ See here, you young savages,” began he, laugh¬ 
ing good-humoredly, “listen to me! If you do 
not get down to business and use some sense, 
Christmas will be here and you will have nothing 
at all.” 

A wail ascended from Nell and Martin. 

“Your mother can give you either turkey or a 
tree; but she can’t give you both. In my opinion 
she is almighty good to do so much.” 

He saw the children flush uncomfortably. 
Carl dropped his eyes and Mary slipped a hand 
into her mother’s. 

“Now instead of clamoring at her like a lot 
of ungrateful little brutes and wanting the whole 
earth, why don’t you show her you are grateful 
for what she’s doing? ” went on Captain Dilling¬ 
ham in a sharper tone. 

“ Oh, it’s all right, Frederick,” interrupted Mrs. 
McGregor hurriedly. “ I don’t want — ” 

The captain, however, was not to be stopped. 


A FAMILY CONGRESS 


145 

“Your mother is ready to give you turkey or 
a tree. How many are for turkey? ” 

Carl and Tim raised their hands. 

“ And who is for the tree? ” 

Instantly Mary, Martin, and Nell raised their 
hands. 

“ It is the tree, as I see it,” acclaimed he. 

“But it isn’t fair,” Tim objected. “James 
Frederick didn’t vote.” 

At this everybody laughed and whatever ten¬ 
sion there was vanished. 

“ Oh, James Frederick would vote for the tree,” 
Mary said. “ He is so little he couldn’t eat tur¬ 
key if we had it, could he, Mother? ” 

“ I’m afraid he couldn’t,” smiled her mother. 
“ He hasn’t teeth enough.” 

“ Then it is a tree! A tree! ” cried Martin ex¬ 
ultantly. 

“ Wait! ” Captain Dillingham put up his hand. 
“ We haven’t finished with this matter yet. 
You’ve got your tree from your mother; now I 
can give you a turkey if you decide you want me 
to. But first you are to listen to what I have to 
say. A Christmas tree and a turkey mean a great 
deal for one family to have in these days when 
so many people are having so little. The 
O’Dowds, for example, are to have neither a 
Christmas dinner nor a tree; I happen to know 
that. Joey has been sick and there are doctor’s 
bills to pay. Beside that, Mr. O’Dowd has been 
out of work and has no money to spend this 
year.” 


i 4 6 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

The little McGregors regarded their uncle with 
solemn faces. 

“ Oh, dear!” breathed Mary sympathetically. 

Carl scowled soberly; then his face glowed with 
a sudden idea. 

“ Couldn’t we — ” he hesitated awkwardly. 

“ Oh, Uncle Frederick, if you were really going 
to buy a turkey, couldn’t we give it to them?” 
flashed Mary, smiling toward her brother. 
“ Would you mind giving it away to somebody 
else? You see, if you were going to buy it any¬ 
way— ” she regarded her uncle timidly, “we 
could have something else for dinner, couldn’t 
we, Mother? Perhaps corn chowder. We all 
like that. And maybe we could have a pudding 
and some nuts.” 

“ Bully, Mary! I’m with you! ” Carl rejoined. 

“ I’d like to do that, too,” agreed Martin. “ I 
wouldn’t mind so much about the turkey if we 
had the tree.” 

“What do you say, Tim?” inquired Captain 
Dillingham. 

“ I don’t see why we should give our turkey to 
somebody else,” grumbled Tim sullenly. “ We 
never have one all the year — never! You know 
we don’t, Mother.” 

“No, dear; I’m afraid we don’t,” Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor said. 

“Then why should we give ours away,” went 
on Tim in an argumentative tone. “ Don’t we 
want turkey as much as the O’Dowds, I’d like to 
know? ” 


A FAMILY CONGRESS 


147 


“ Oh, Timmie!” 

“ Don’t be such a pig, Tim,” cut in Carl with 
brotherly directness. “ If we were hard up, 
wouldn’t you like somebody to send you something 
for Christmas?” 

Tim colored, his brother’s question bringing 
home to him uncomfortable possibilities. 

“ We could have such fun doing it, Timmie,” 
coaxed Mary. “ Think how we could trim up the 
basket, and what a surprise it would be! Why, 
it would make no end of sport.” 

Tim’s expression softened. 

Instantly Mrs. McGregor, who was quick to 
interpret her children’s moods, saw the battle was 
won. 

“ We can plan together what shall go into the 
basket,” said she briskly. “ Each of us might 
contribute the thing he likes best.” 

“The turkey shall be mine!” Uncle Frederick 
declared. 

“ I choose cranberry sauce! ” Carl announced. 

“ Celery! Oh, could I put in celery, Mother? ” 
Mary inquired. “ The tops are so pretty and I 
love it so! ” 

Her mother nodded. 

“ Somebody must give the plain things so I 
will donate potatoes, squash, and onions,” she 
said. 

“Don’t forget nuts! We must have nuts and 
raisins,” Mary added. 

“ I’d like to give those,” Tim whispered. 

“You shall, son.” 


148 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

A friendly little glance passed between the boy 
and his mother. 

“Pie! I want pie! ” asserted Nell, who al¬ 
though too young to understand what was going 
on, nevertheless grasped the notion that food was 
the prevailing topic and plunged into the subject 
with enthusiasm. 

“ Bless your heart, dearie, you shall have pie! ” 
laughed her mother. “ I’ll make a couple of apple 
pies and they shall be your present.” 

“ There ought to be candy. Please let me send 
candy! May I?” begged Martin for whom the 
world held only two articles really worth while 
— candy and ice cream. 

There was general merriment at this suggestion. 

“ Precious little candy would ever get to any¬ 
body else if you had the giving of it, Martie,” 
teased Mary. 

“ Yes, Martin shall give the candy,” Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor consented. 

“ We’ll paste his mouth up before he goes to 
buy it,” Carl drawled. 

“ Don’t you s’pose I could keep from eating it 
if once I set out to? ” scowled Martin defiantly. 

“No, I don’t!” 

“ Well, I could, so now! ” The boy drew him¬ 
self up proudly. 

“James Frederick ought to send something, 
Mother,” reminded the care-taking Mary. “ We 
don’t want him left out.” 

“Oh, we mustn’t leave out the baby!” agreed 
Captain Dillingham. “ He and I will get to- 


A FAMILY CONGRESS 


149 

gether and talk the matter over. There are still 
several things needed.” 

“ Oh, it will be splendid!” cried Mary, clap¬ 
ping her hands. “ Do get a real big turkey, won’t 
you, Uncle Frederick? And we’ll trim it up with 
a necklace of cranberries the way they do in the 
market.” 

“Huh! There you go again,” sniffed Tim. 
“ All girls seem to think of is necklaces and bows 
of ribbon.” 

Mary smiled brightly. 

“ What’s the harm in making it pretty if you 
can just as well?” asked she. “ I do love pretty 
things. Why, I believe I could eat stewed whale 
if it was on a pretty dish.” 

“I couldn’t; I’d hate whale,” responded the 
stolid Timothy. 

“ Oh, I didn’t mean I’d really eat whale, silly,” 
explained Mary. 

“Then what did you say you would for?” 

“ Mary was just imagining, dear,” put in Mrs. 
McGregor, coming to the rescue. 

“ She is always imagining,” glowered Tim. 
“ Only the other day she was trying to make me 
imagine my salt fish was chicken.” 

“ I’ll bet she didn’t succeed,” taunted Carl. 

“ Not on your life she didn’t! ” was the instant 
answer. “ I know salt fish when I see it.” 

“ No matter, dear,” soothed Mrs. McGregor, 
affectionately touching her daughter’s arm. “ If 
by her imagining Mary can convert salt fish into 
chicken it is an asset that will stand her in good 


1 5 o CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

stead all through life. And if you, Tim, prefer 
to keep your salt fish just salt fish, why you have 
a perfect right to do so. I will say, however, that 
the person who has the power to make believe has 
an invaluable gift. Many’s the time I’ve made be¬ 
lieve and it has helped me over more than one hard 
spot. We all have to masquerade to a greater or 
less degree. It is simply meeting life with im¬ 
agination and seeing in the humdrum something 
that associates it with finer and more beautiful 
things.” For a moment she was silent; then she 
added in her quick, businesslike accents, “ And 
now to this dinner! There must be a basket to 
hold it, of course.” 

“ A big market basket, Mother, lined with red 
paper. Do line it with red,” pleaded Mary. 

“ It shall be lined with red, little lady! And 
trimmed with holly, too!” replied Uncle Fred¬ 
erick. “ I will undertake to furnish both decora¬ 
tions along with the turkey.” 

“ Why not put in Santa Claus napkins? I 
saw some paper ones the other day and they 
were tremendously festive,” suggested Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor. 

“ I think the best plan is for us all to go together 
and buy the dinner,” the Captain suddenly an¬ 
nounced. 

Shouts of approval greeted the plan. 

“ But the baby! ” demurred his sister. 

“ We can wheel James Frederick in the carriage 
and take turns staying outside the shops with him,” 
said Carl. 


A FAMILY CONGRESS 


151 

“ And if we have the carriage we can bring 
home our stuff in it,” put in Tim. 

“ Poor baby! How would you like to have a 
big ten-pound turkey piled on top of you? ” ques¬ 
tioned Mary indignantly. 

“ Oh, James Frederick won’t mind,” Tim re¬ 
sponded comfortably. “ And anyhow, he’s got to 
do his bit toward making other people happy. 
As far as I can see he isn’t denying himself any¬ 
thing, for he couldn’t eat a turkey if it was set 
right under his nose. So it’s his part to tote home 
the parcels in his flivver; he seems to be the only 
member of the family that has one.” 

Thus it was agreed and on the day before 
Christmas it would have done one good to witness 
the cavalcade of McGregors issuing forth on their 
altruistic pilgrimage. First went Mary, leading 
Nell by the hand; then Carl with Martin’s mitten 
firmly clutched in his. Next came Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor with Tim, and bringing up at the rear was 
Uncle Frederick wheeling his namesake, the baby. 
What a tour it was! Certainly there never had 
been such a turkey as the one the reckless captain 
bought— a turkey so plump of breast, so white of 
skin, so golden of claw! Why, it was a king of 
birds! And then the shining coral of the cran¬ 
berries, the satin gleam of the onions, the warm 
brown of the potatoes! As for the celery—its 
delicate green and faint canary tips were as good 
as a bouquet of flowers. Just to view its crispness 
was to make the mouth water. And the nuts, 
raisins, candy, oranges! Once in their vicinity 


152 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

Captain Dillingham cast aside all caution and 
wildly purchased one dainty after another. He 
seemed to have gone quite mad and it was not until 
his sister very positively informed him that not 
another bundle could be carried that he consented 
to be dragged away from the counters of sweet¬ 
meats. 

Then staggering beneath their load of whity- 
brown parcels, the family hastened out to the baby 
carriage where Mary stood guarding James Fred¬ 
erick. 

“ Put the turkey down near his feet,” cried she 
excitedly, as she lifted the baby in order to make 
more room. “ The other things can be packed in 
round him.” 

“ But he’ll be stifled!” objected Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor. 

“Oh, no, he won’t, Ma!” contradicted Tim. 
“ He’ll probably be uncomfortable. Christmas 
comes but once a year, though, so he ought to be 
able to survive being cramped.” 

“ Oh, James Frederick is perfectly used to hav¬ 
ing his coupe turned into an express wagon, 
Mother,” Carl explained. “ Don’t worry about 
him. Often he rides home from downtown 
buried a foot deep in bundles. All that fusses me 
is whether the carriage will stand the strain. If 
it should part in the middle and the front wheels 
go off on an independent route it would be — ” 

“ Both inconvenient and embarrassing,” con¬ 
cluded Captain Dillingham with a laugh. 

Fortunately, however, James Frederick’s char- 


A FAMILY CONGRESS 


153 

iot was staunchly constructed and reached Mul¬ 
berry Court without mishap, its precious contents 
— including the patient owner of the vehicle — 
being borne triumphantly aloft to the McGregor 
flat. Once upstairs the basket, scarlet paper, and 
holly were produced, and Mary with deft fingers 
went to work to fashion a receptacle worthy of the 
bounties with which the O’Dowds were to be sur¬ 
prised. At last into this garish hamper were 
packed the viands and afterward a card bearing 
holiday greetings was tied to the handle with a 
flaring red bow. 

“ Now the worst task is to come,” declared Mrs. 
McGregor, “ and that is to land the present at 
Julie’s door without being caught. They are 
proud people, the O’Dowds, and I wouldn’t for 
worlds have them know from whom the dinner 
comes. Timmie is not strong enough to take it 
and Carl is too clumsy. Should he start to run 
away, like as not he would stumble and bring 
all Mulberry Court to see what the racket 
was.” 

“ Why can’t I carry it? ” inquired Captain Dill¬ 
ingham. 

“ You! One sight of your gold buttons would 
be enough, Frederick. Besides, you’re none too 
agile in making a getaway.” 

“ I fancy some boy could be found to leave it 
if I paid him,” suggested the captain. 

“ The very thing! There’s a score of ’em on 
the street. Fetch in the fastest runner you see, 
Timmie. No matter whether you know him or 


154 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

not. In fact, get one you don’t know. ’Twill be 
all the better.” 

Away sped Tim only to return an instant later 
with a grimy, Italian youngster at his heels. 

Captain Dillingham explained the errand. 

At the sight of the gleaming quarter of a dollar 
the Italian grinned. He would leave a bomb or a 
live ox at anybody’s door for a quarter, affirmed 
he with an ingratiating smile. 

Therefore the precious basket was entrusted to 
him and to judge by the scampering that followed 
its thud before the O’Dowds’ door he was quite 
as fleet of foot as Tim had asserted. 

“ Wouldn’t you like to see their faces when they 
find it? ” whispered Carl who, with Mary, was 
hanging over the banister, straining his ears for 
every sound. 

There was not, however, much to hear. 

After the furious knock somebody ventured into 
the hall. Then Julie’s voice, high-pitched with 
excitement and consternation, exclaimed, “ Mercy 
on us!” With that she dragged the basket into 
her abode and banged the door. 

It was a brief drama but one entirely satisfying 
to the McGregors. Over and over again did Carl 
and Mary enact the scene to the intense delight of 
the family. 

“ Now mind, should Mrs. O’Dowd come up 
here with questions, you are to be careful what you 
say,” cautioned their mother. “ There’s to be no 
hinting, winking, or smirking. Should Julie say 
anything, leave it to your uncle or me to answer. 



” But that isn’t our basket. Mother,” Carl said. ” This 
is much bigger.” Page 155 . 









A FAMILY CONGRESS 


155 

All the fun would be spoiled if you gave the secret 
away.” 

“ Oh, yes,” agreed Carl. “ The sport is to keep 
folks guessing.” 

But no sooner were the words out of his mouth 
than there was a rapping at the hall door. 

“ Oh, Ma! I’ll bet that is Mrs. O’Dowd now! ” 
gasped Mary. 

“ It can’t be! She’d not track us down so quick 
as this,” replied Mrs. McGregor, flustered and half 
rising. 

“ Most likely it’s the Christmas tree, Mother,” 
Tim suggested. “They promised to send it early 
this afternoon.” 

Again came the knock. 

“ I’m half afraid to open the door lest it be 
Julie,” faltered Mrs. McGregor. “ Be still a 
minute, all of you, till I think what I’ll say to her.” 

But when, amid a tense hush, the door was finally, 
opened, neither Julie O’Dowd nor the watched- 
for Christmas tree was on the threshold. Instead 
they saw a holly-decked basket so exactly a replica 
of the one they had given away mat a cry of disap¬ 
pointment greeted it. 

“ She’s sent it back! ” cried Mary. 

“ She was offended and wouldn’t take it! ” mur¬ 
mured Mrs. McGregor. “ I feared as much.” 

“ But that isn’t our basket, Mother,” Carl said. 
“ This is much bigger. Besides, we had no ap¬ 
ples or candy bags in the one we sent.” 

Critically studying the gift, the family clustered 
around. 


156 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ It isn’t our basket, Mother,” Mary presently 
asserted. “ See, this one is red.” 

“There must be some mistake, then,” Mrs. 
McGregor declared. “ They’ve left it at the 
wrong place.” 

“ But our name is on it! ” cried Tim. 

“Where? Where?” What a bumping of 
heads there was as everybody bent to read the 
card. 

“ Yes, our name is on it plain as day! ” replied 
Mrs. McGregor with a puzzled expression. Then, 
inspired by a solution of the mystery, she wheeled 
round on her brother. 

“ How much do you know about this, Fred¬ 
erick? ” 

“Not a thing, Nellie — I give you my word! 
Dearly as I should have liked to send you such a 
gift, my purse wasn’t quite good for it,” flushed the 
captain. 

“ And what wonder, with all you’ve spent this 
day,” returned his sister quickly. “Then we’ll 
count you out. But where could it have come 
from? ” 

“We don’t need to leave it in the hall until 
we find out, do we, Mother? ” Mary ventured mis¬ 
chievously. 

“ No, I suppose we don’t,” was the retort. 
“Timmie, you and Carl drag it indoors. Don’t 
try to lift it, for you’ll only be straining yourselves 
and maybe drop it. Let’s get it into the kitchen. 
There may be some clue when we have a better 
light.” 


A FAMILY CONGRESS 


157 

But examine it as they would, no hint as to the 
mysterious sender could be found. 

“ I guess he believes with Carl that the sport of 
giving a present is to keep the other person guess¬ 
ing,” Tim remarked wickedly. 

A general laugh at Carl’s expense greeted the 
observation. 

“ Hush! ” cautioned Mrs. McGregor. “There’S 
somebody in the hall.” 

“ He won’t get away this time,” Carl cried, 
springing up and throwing open the door. 

“ Good heavens, man! You nearly knocked me 
down!” cried Hal Harling, amazed by the sud¬ 
denness of his welcome. “ What’s the matter with 
you? Trying to trap a burglar?” Then, glanc¬ 
ing at the object about which the household were 
clustering, he added, “Jove! Have you got one, 
too?” 

“ What do you mean? ” 

“ Why, just now somebody left a basket exactly 
like this at our flat. I thought maybe you folks 
had something to do with it and came straight 
over here to see. But you seem to be favored by 
a similar gift. They are alike as two peas. Who 
sent them? ” 

“ That is precisely what we want to know,” Carl 
replied. 

“ You’ve no idea? ” 

“ Not the most rernote.” 

“ Hasn’t Captain Dillingham? ” 

“ I’m not guilty, if that is what you mean,” the 
sea captain answered. 


158 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“Straight goods?” Hal insisted. 

“ Hang, die, and choke to death! ” laughed the 
little old man. 

“ But — but — somebody sent the thing! ” blus¬ 
tered Hal. “ Why, there is everything on earth in 
it. Food enough to last a week. And ours has a 
shawl for my mother and some felt slippers for my 
grandfather in the bottom. And there are gloves 
for Louise and me. It came from somebody who 
knew all about us. It was no haphazard present.” 

“ Can you beat it! ” murmured Carl. “Who¬ 
ever do you suppose — ” 

“ I can’t suppose. We thought it was you,” an¬ 
nounced Hal. “There’s a knock at the door. 
Shall I go?” 

Leaping forward he turned the knob, and in 
came Mrs. O’Dowd. 

“ I’ve had the most wonderful basket sent me 
that ever — ” began she; then her eye fell upon the 
hamper in the center of the floor. “ Glory be to 
goodness!” she ejaculated. “Wherever did you 
get that? ” 

“ We don’t know,” Carl answered. 

“ And we’ve one just like it and can’t find out 
who sent us ours,” put in Hal Harling. 

“ Well, I thought for sure as you were the folks 
that sent me mine,” declared Julie. “ But if they 
are being scattered broadcast and you are getting 
one yourselves I reckon it is safe to say you don’t 
know much about where mine came from. Well, 
all I can say is may the sender of them have a 
blessed Christmas. Owing to O’Dowd being out 


A FAMILY CONGRESS 


i59 


of work, we were to have a pretty slim celebration 
this year. The children were like to get nothing 
at all. And then just when I was trying to com¬ 
fort myself with thinking how glad I should be 
that Joey was well, and that we all had our health 
even if we did lack a turkey and the fixings, along 
comes this windfall. Why, it is as if the heavens 
opened and dropped it straight down at our door. 
It does you good to know there are kind hearts in 
the world, doesn’t it? ” 

One and all the McGregors smiled. If they 
wanted thanks for the self-denial they had prac¬ 
tised they certainly had them in the gratitude that 
beamed from Julie’s face. 

“ Well, it will be a royal Christmas for all of us, 
won’t it? ” went on the little woman, bustling out. 
“ I must hurry back downstairs. The children are 
that crazy they are like to eat the turkey raw, claws, 
neck and feathers! ” 

“ I’ll come with you, Mrs. O’Dowd,” said Hal. 
“ Good-by, and a Merry Christmas, everybody.” 

“ I’m mighty glad we sent that dinner to the 
O’Dowd’s!” commented Carl soberly, when the 
door was shut and the McGregors were alone. 
“ I’d be glad we did it even if we had no dinner 
of our own,” he added, his eyes alight with a grave 
happiness. 

“ And I, too,” whispered Tim. 


CHAPTER XII 


A CLUE 

The next morning, fluttering excitedly round a 
Christmas tree spangled with tinsel and aglow with 
lights, the McGregors received their presents; and 
not they alone, for Julie O’Dowd, with her five 
youngsters, swelled the party, together with the 
Murphys and the Sullivans from the floors below. 
There was popcorn for everybody and satiny 
striped candy, and from the mysterious basket an 
orange for each guest was produced. 

“ When we have so much ourselves it would be 
wrong to keep it all,” Mrs. McGregor had as¬ 
serted; and her household fully agreed with her. 
Therefore the neighbors were summoned in to 
share in the festivity. 

And after the visitors had trailed down the long 
stairway, shouting back their pleasure and grati¬ 
tude, the wonderful dinner the hamper contained 
was prepared, and what a delightful ceremonial 
that was! Did ever any such tantalizing aroma 
drift upon the air as ascended from the browning 
turkey? Or did ever potatoes so fill their jackets 
to bursting? As for the celery — it was like ivory; 
and the cranberry jelly as transparent and glowing 
as a huge ruby. And, oh, the browning crust of the 


A CLUE 


161 


mince pies! So many hungry little McGregors 
swarmed round the stove it was a marvel some of 
them were not burned to death on hot stove covers 
or the oven door. One could scarcely baste the 
turkey without falling over two or three of them. 

However, nobody was scalded or blistered and 
when at length the great bronzed bird was borne 
from the oven a procession of exultant children 
followed in the wake of the huge platter, every 
one of them shouting for the wishbone or a drum¬ 
stick. 

“ Was the creature a centipede he would hardly 
have drumsticks to satisfy you!” laughed their 
mother. “ Who ever saw such a lot of cannibals! 
Was anybody to hear your hubbub they’d think 
you had never had a mouthful to eat in all your 
lives. I don’t believe your uncle ever saw worse 
heathen in the South Sea Islands.” 

Nevertheless, in spite of her caustic comment, it 
was plain that the mother was enjoying her chil¬ 
dren’s pleasure and that Uncle Frederick was en¬ 
joying it too. 

“ Well,” went on Mrs. McGregor, “ if you do 
not get filled up to-day it will be your own fault. 
I shall put no check on anybody. You may eat 
all you’ll hold.” 

Profiting by this spacious permission the Mc¬ 
Gregors fell to and what a feast they had! Never 
had they dreamed of such a meal. Even Carl and 
Martin, whose capacity appeared to be limitless, 
were at length forced to confess that for once in 
their lives they had had enough; as for Tim he 


162 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


sank back in his chair almost in tears because he 
could not find room for another mouthful. 

“ I couldn’t squeeze down a single ’nother thing 
if I was paid for it,” wailed he. “ And I did so 
want a second helping of pudding! Why didn’t' 
you stop me, Ma, when I started out on that giant 
sweet potato?” 

His mother shrugged her shoulders. 

“You must learn to make your own choices,” 
said she. “ Perhaps ’twill teach you next time not 
to covet all you see. And now, before we begin to 
clear up, I want to make sure you are all content. 
There must be no regrets. I don’t want to hear 
to-morrow that you wish you had had so-and-so. 
So think well before the food is whisked into the 
pantry. Has everybody had enough?” 

A chorus of muffled groans arose. 

“ What do you think we are, Ma? ” Tim man¬ 
aged to murmur. 

“ Indeed I don’t know,” was the grim retort. 
“ I’ve often wondered. So you think you couldn’t 
eat a morsel more? ” 

" Think! We know we couldn’t,” gasped Carl. 

“ Then sit still a second, all of you, till I take a 
good look at you!” commanded their mother. 
“ That I should live to see the day when I would 
dish up a meal without some amongst you yammer¬ 
ing for another helping! I’m almost tempted to 
take an affidavit with your signatures in black and 
white and preserve it in the family Bible.” 

With arms akimbo she viewed her grinning 
flock. 


A CLUE 


163 

“ Well, since you’re beyond urging, we may as 
well turn to the dishes — that is, if anybody can 
stagger up and help.” 

Reaching over she began to remove the food 
from the table. 

Mary sprang to aid her. 

“ Let me carry the things into the pantry,” Tim 
said. “ Maybe if I walk round some it will shake 
down what I’ve eaten.” 

“ Are you laying to eat another course? ” derided 
Carl. 

“Aw, quit it!” growled Tim. “I’ll bet I 
haven’t made way with any more than you have. 
Here, fork over that pie! I’ll put it in the closet.” 

“ Can we trust you with it? ” called Captain 
Dillingham. 

Tim put up his hand. 

“ Say, I wouldn’t touch that pie if you were to 
go down on your knees and beg me to,” Tim de¬ 
clared. “ Millions wouldn’t hire me! ” 

“Give it to him, Carl; he sounds perfectly 
safe,” asserted the lad’s mother. “ And put those 
apples and figs away, too, dear, if you are going 
into the pantry. Mary, you and Carl pile the 
dishes. What an army of them there are! I be¬ 
lieve we have out every plate we own. Martin, 
do take the babies into the next room where they 
will be out from under foot. And watch that Nell 
doesn’t eat the candles off the tree. She’s always 
thinking they are candy, the witch! ” 

“You must let me help,” urged Uncle Fred¬ 
erick, rolling up his sleeves. 


164 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ Oh, you must not work to-day, Frederick,” his 
sister protested. “ It is a holiday and you are on 
shore leave. Besides, it never seems right to me 
to see the captain of a ship working.” 

“ Oh, the captain of a ship knows the galley quite 
as well as the bridge,” responded Uncle Frederick. 
Seizing a towel he stationed himself beside Mary 
who was elbow deep in the dishpan. “ All hands 
to the pumps! ” cried he sharply. 

It was a ringing command and instantly Tim 
and Carl leaped forward to obey it. 

What a dish-wiping team the three made! 

Mary could scarcely wash fast enough to keep 
up with them. 

In the meantime Mrs. McGregor was here, 
there, and everywhere, putting to rights the disor¬ 
dered house; and so effectual was her touch that 
by the time the last plate was on the shelf tranquil¬ 
lity reigned and except for lurking candy bags and 
stray bits of red ribbon it almost seemed as if there 
had never been such an event as a Christmas 
party. 

“ Now why can’t we all go over to the Harlings, 
Ma?” Carl inquired. “ They will be through 
their dinner by this time. Hal asked if we couldn’t 
come.” 

“ But not all of us! ” objected Mrs. McGregor. 
“ Why, we’re a caravan! ” 

“ Nobody minds caravans on Christmas,” 
pleaded Carl. “ Grandfather Harling would love 
to see the children. We haven’t had them there 
for ever so long.” 


A CLUE 165 

u I suppose we might go. It isn’t very far,” his 
mother meditated. 

“ Oh, do let’s! ” Tim put in. “ I’ll wheel James 
Frederick.” 

“ You? You couldn’t wheel anything, so full are 
you of turkey and plum pudding! If you get there 
yourself you will be doing well,” was the curt re¬ 
tort. “ However, if you all want to go, I’ll not 
hinder you. Scurry and get your caps, coats, and 
mittens.” 

Off flew the youngsters in every direction; off, 
too, flew Mrs. McGregor with Nell and Martin 
at her heels and the baby in her arms. 

Owing to excitement and the general holiday 
confusion it was some time before there were two 
rubbers, two mittens, a cap, coat, and muffler for 
everybody; on the very brink of departure a full 
equipment for Martin could not be found and to 
his unbounded delight he was compelled to set 
forth in one arctic and one rubber boot— a novel 
combination that greatly heightened his pleasure 
in the trip and made him the envy of all his 
younger brothers and sisters. Whether his satis¬ 
faction would have outlived a long journey is un¬ 
certain for the rubber boot proved to be not only 
too large but treacherously leaky. Notwithstand¬ 
ing the fact, however, he was a sufficiently good 
sport to make the best of his unfortunate bargain 
and clatter up the long, dim flights that led to the 
Harlings’ suite with as much spirit as the rest. 

And oh, such a welcome as the family received 
when they did arrive! 


166 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


It would have warmed the heart to see the little 
ones rush to Grandfather Harling, clinging round 
him like a swarm of bees and clamoring for a story. 
And a story they got— and not only one but two, 
three, for Grandfather was a rare story-teller and 
a great lover of children. Meantime the elders 
gossiped together, their chief topic of speculation 
being the sender of the wonderful Christmas din¬ 
ners. 

“ If you hadn’t got one, Carl, I should almost 
be tempted to think old Corcoran had sent ours to 
ease his conscience,” Hal announced. “ But of 
course he wouldn’t have been stretching his philan¬ 
thropy so far as Mulberry Court, I’m afraid.” 

“ Oh, I’m sure the dinner couldn’t have come 
from Mr. Corcoran,” put in Louise quickly. “ It 
wouldn’t be a bit like him to tie the nuts up with 
fancy ribbon, and tuck in the presents. No, some¬ 
body sent that dinner who really cared, and took 
pains to have it pretty and tempting. Mr. Cor¬ 
coran might order us a dinner at the market but 
he never would have packed the basket himself 
as _ as _Mr. X did.” 

“ Well, all I can say is that Mr. X, whoever he 
is, is a corker; and may he live long and prosper! ” 
Hal declared. 

“ He will prosper,” murmured Mrs. Harling in 
her soft voice. “ Such a man cannot help it.” 

“ I do wish, though, we knew who he is, don’t 
you? ” Mary asked. “ I’d just like to thank him.” 

“ I fancy Mr. X is not the sort that covets 
thanks,” her mother replied. “ Some people take 


A CLUE 167 

their pleasure in doing a kind deed. I imagine 
Louise’s Mr. X is one of that sort.” 

So they talked on, until suddenly glancing out 
of the window, Mrs. McGregor exclaimed in con¬ 
sternation, “ Why, it is snowing! ” 

Sure enough! A thick smother of flakes whirled 
down into the deserted streets and cutting short 
Grandfather Harling’s story, the visitors bundled 
themselves into their wraps. 

“ I hope the children won’t take cold,” said Mrs. 
Harling anxiously. 

“Take cold? Mercy, no! They are tough as 
nuts, every soul of them,” answered their mother. 
“ Having no automobiles they gain it in their 
health. Poverty has its blessings — I’ll say that! 
Now, Carl, you hold onto Nell and don’t let her 
down on all fours; she is such a fat little blunder¬ 
buss! And Mary, keep Martin in the path if you 
can, or he will lose that huge rubber boot. Uncle 
Frederick is going to wheel the baby. And re¬ 
member, Tim, there are to be no snowballs or 
snow down anybody’s neck. You will have plenty 
of time for that sort of fun to-morrow, if you call 
it fun. And, children, do try to go down the stairs 
quietly. Don’t forget there are other people on 
earth besides yourselves. A Merry Christmas, 
everybody! ” 

“And three cheers for Mr. X!” Hal added 
boyishly. 

“ Hal Harling, don’t you dare set this brood of 
mine cheering in the hallway! They’ll raise the 
roof,” ejaculated Mrs. McGregor, putting up a 


168 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


warning finger. “ Not but what I’d gladly cheer 
the person who sent those dinners; but we mustn’t 
do it here.” 

“ Well, it was a jim-dandy dinner, anyway,” 
chuckled Hal. “ We’ll be eating that turkey for 
days. It was big as an ostrich! ” 

“ Maybe you drew an ostrich by mistake,” 
grinned Carl. “ Who knows?” 

Oh, it would have taken hearts less merry than 
these to be dampened by the storm! Home 
plodded the McGregors, shouting gaily amid the 
piling drifts. 

“ My, it is going to be a real blizzard! ” Mrs. 
McGregor predicted. “ Every tree and bush is 
laden already.” 

“ The little shrubs in the park look like cotton 
bushes,” replied Uncle Frederick over his shoul¬ 
der. “ Look, youngsters! You were asking about 
cotton when it is ripe. That is much the way it 
looks.” He motioned toward the vista of bending 
foliage. 

“ How pretty it is! ” said Mary. 

“ And in reality cotton is prettier by far, for 
there is always the blue of the sky, the gold of the 
sunshine, and the green of the country. It is as 
if one had a snowstorm in summer.” 

There was little opportunity for further talk for 
the trodden snow narrowed into a ribbon and the 
walkers were obliged to thread the drifts single 
file. At last, however, Mulberry Court came into 
view and with a stamping of feet and a brushing 
of caps and coats the family were within its wel- 


A CLUE 


169 

coming portals. Then James Frederick was dug 
out of his carriage, shaken, and borne crowing 
and rosy up the stairs. 

The flat proved to be warm and comfortable 
and while Mary lighted the lamps her mother 
poked up the fire and sprinkled on more coal. 

“ Now let’s sit down everybody and have a nice, 
jolly evening,” said she when the outer garments 
were all stowed away. “ Come, Carl, draw up the 
rocker for Uncle Frederick. And, Timmie, there’s 
room for you here beside me. What’s the matter, 
laddie?” 

For answer Tim glanced at the steely blue hands 
of the clock now pointing to six. 

“ Aren’t we going to have any supper?” ques¬ 
tioned he in an aggrieved tone. 

“ Supper! ” exploded his mother. “ Surely you 
are not looking for anything more to eat to-day. 
You yourself declared only a little while ago that 
you couldn’t eat another morsel.” 

“ It wasn’t a little while ago; it was hours,” Tim 
affirmed. “ We’ve been to walk since then and 
I’m hungry.” 

“ Hungry! Did you ever hear the likes! Hun¬ 
gry! And the bairn swallowing down turkey until 
I expected every second he would have apoplexy! ” 

“ I’m hungry, too,” rejoined Carl with shame¬ 
faced candor. 

“ So am I! ” piped Martin. 

“Well, I never saw your match!” cried their 
mother, holding up her hands. “ One would think 
you were cobras, anacondas, or something else out 


1 7 o CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

of the zoo. Still, I don’t see as I can let you starve. 
If you’re hungry there’s the pantry with its shelves 
groaning aloud with food. Run in and help your¬ 
selves.” 

Her family needed no second bidding. Above 
everything else they loved a meal where all super¬ 
fluous accessories such as knives, forks, and nap¬ 
kins were done away with, and where there was no 
one at one’s elbow to caution or demand the time¬ 
worn “ pleases ” and “ thank you’s.” To forage in 
the pantry unrestrained was like being let loose in 
the vales of Arcadia. One after another they 
emerged, bearing in their hands the spoils most at¬ 
tracting their fancy. 

“ You’re not going to devour that whole cross 
section of squash pie, are you, Tim? ” asked Mary, 
aghast. 

“ Sure I am,” retorted the unabashed Timothy. 
“ That is, unless you want part of it.” 

“ Of course I don’t. But I should think you’d 
die! ” 

“ I don’t expect to die,” returned her imper¬ 
turbable brother. “ And if I do I’ll at least have 
had one everlasting good feed.” 

“Tim!” expostulated his horrified mother. 

“ Well, I will have,” repeated the boy. “ And 
anyhow, I don’t believe I’ve eaten so much more 
than other folks. I notice you don’t mention little 
Carlie here. He’s worried down some food to-day, 
and like as not Hal Harling has, too. What’s more, 
I’ll bet a hat Hal won’t go supperless to bed.” 

At that moment a rap came at the door and 


A CLUE 


171 

Mary sprang forward to admit the very young 
gentleman in question. 

“ You see, I’m returning your call on schedule 
time,” grinned he, shaking the snow from his outer 
garments. “ I can’t stay but a moment; but I had 
to come and tell you what’s happened. What do 
you think of that? ” Diving into his pocket he 
held forth a handsome watch and chain. 

“ Who’ve you been robbing? ” drawled Carl. 

“ I don’t wonder you say so, kid. Can you beat 
it? Did you ever see such a beauty? ” 

“ But — but — Hal, where on earth did you get 
a thing like that? ” 

“ Well may you ask, kid! Think of me hitched 
to a gold watch! Oh, it’s mine all right. Have a 
look inside the back cover. There’s my name, you 
see, in perfectly good English.” 

“ Where did you get it, Hal? ” demanded Mrs. 
McGregor, as the gift traveled from one admiring 
hand to another. 

“ You’d never guess, any of you. It came from 
my worst enemy.” The big fellow threw back his 
head and laughed a ringing laugh. 

“ But that tells us nothing. You have a million 
enemies,” blurted out Carl. 

“ It certainly is from our friends we learn the 
truth,” Hal replied with cheerfulness. “ You’re 
not a flatterer, are you, Carlie? ” 

“ But I can’t imagine who should present you 
with a gold watch,” Carl mused, ignoring the com¬ 
ment. 

“ Oh, you’re not half bright to-day. What’s the 


172 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

matter with you? ” hectored Hal, who was enjoy¬ 
ing the sensation he had created. 

“ He’s eaten too much turkey,” Tim piped. 

“ I guess that’s it,” agreed young Harling. 
“ Come, gather your wits together. Louise guessed 
the conundrum. You ought to be as smart as she 
is.” 

Vaguely Carl studied his friend’s face. 

“ Of course it couldn’t be from Corcoran,” ven¬ 
tured he, as if thinking aimlessly. 

“ And why not? ” 

“ Why, because — why Corcoran wouldn’t — 
why should Corcoran give you a present like 
that? ” 

“ The very words I said myself! ” 

“ Do you mean to say it was Corcoran?” 

“ Well, it wasn’t from Corcoran himself. But 
he had the buying of it. The watch came from 
the Corcoran kid and Midget, the dog.” 

“Oh!” Carl gasped, a wave of understanding 
flooding his face. “ It was because of what you 
did that day. I’d almost forgotten.” 

“ So had I. Corcoran thanked me up at the 
works some time afterward; you remember I told 
you about it. Well, I thought that was the end 
of the matter,” Hal explained. “ But evidently 
the Corcorans thought they wouldn’t leave it there. 
So — ” with a flourish he held up the gift. 

“ Oh, Hal, I think that was splendid of them,” 
Mrs. McGregor declared. “You deserve it, too. 
Carl said you might have been killed that day.” 

“ Nonsense! That’s Carlie’s yellow journalism. 


A CLUE 


173 

He told you a great yarn, I’ve no doubt. You 
ought to be on one of the daily papers, kid.” 

“ But you did take an awful chance, you know 
you did,” insisted Carl stoutly. 

“ Oh, you have to take a chance now and then 
to put a little spice into life. It was no great stunt 
I did,” Hal protested. “ I just happened to do it 
before anybody else did, that’s all.” 

“ I guess that’s your way of putting it, laddie,” 
Mrs. McGregor said with an affectionate smile. 
“ Well, we’re certainly glad you have the watch. 
It will be fine and useful. Just see you do not get 
it smashed to bits in some of the scraps you are 
mixed up in.” 

“ Do you think I am going to stand dumb as an 
oyster and let somebody land a blow over my vest 
pocket hard enough to smash that watch, Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor? ” interrogated the giant. “ Pray, where 
would I be while he was doing it? ” 

“ Gentlemen with gold watches should keep out 
of the prize ring,” put in Uncle Frederick mis¬ 
chievously. 

“ Oh, sir, one has to have a watch to call time on 
the other feller,” Hal retorted. 

“ Put it on and let’s see how you look, Hal,” Tim 
begged. 

“ Yes, do! ” echoed Mary. 

“ All right, I’ll dress up in it since you say the 
word,” answered Hal, with an impish grimace. 
“ You may as well see me in it and get used to the 
sight; then you won’t be taking me for an aider- 
man when you meet me on the street.” 


i 7 4 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

He slipped the chain through his buttonhole and 
the watch into his pocket. 

“ Don’t I look for all the world like the Lord 
Mayor of London or one of the Common Coun¬ 
cil?” 

“ You look like an old sport,” Carl asserted, giv¬ 
ing his chum a blow on the chest. 

Harling accepted the knock much as a kitten 
might have accepted a caress. 

“ Just for that I’ve half a mind not to tell you 
the rest of what I came for,” grinned he. “ I’ve 
something else to say that will set your hair on 
end. But you’re that rude that you don’t deserve 
to be told it.” 

“ Oh, what is it, Hal?” Mary cried. 

“ Another secret!” Tim ejaculated. 

“ It isn’t exactly a secret,” Hal said. “ It’s a 
clue.” 

“ A clue! To what, for pity’s sake? ” Carl mur¬ 
mured. 

“You are thick, to-night — no mistake!” 
laughed Hal. “ Why, what have we been 
arguing over all day — twisting and turning 
this way and that? What have we been spec¬ 
ulating over until our brains are weak? Tell me 
that? ” 

“ You haven’t a clue about the Christmas 
baskets! ” gasped Mrs. McGregor. 

“ I’ve a theory,” nodded Hal, with tantalizing 
solemnity. 

“Tell us! Tell us!” cried a chorus of voices. 

“ It’s only a theory, remember, and it doesn’t 


A CLUE 


175 

hitch up in every detail,” went on Hal, quite seri¬ 
ous now. “ But it is worth considering.” 

“ Tell us!” 

“ Well, it isn’t much of a story, so don’t get 
your hopes up. But the fact is that when we 
emptied our basket I turned it upside down — ” 

“Because you were still hungry!” cut in 
Carl. 

“Exactly! How well you read me. Yes, be¬ 
ing still famished, I thought I’d see if some last 
morsel of food did not lurk under the papers. So 
I emptied out everything and what should I find 
scrawled in pencil across the bottom of the basket 
but the word 1 Coulter.’ ” 

“Coulter!” shouted the McGregors in disap¬ 
pointed accents. 

“ What has that to do with it? ” Carl demanded. 

“ Why ” — Hal looked crestfallen — “ why, 
Mr. Coulter of Davis and Coulter is one of my 
bosses, isn’t he? ” 

“Y-e-s, I suppose he is. But he isn’t mine. 
The two baskets were exactly alike and must have 
come from the same person; and certainly Mr. 
Coulter wouldn’t send us a basket. Oh, you’ll 
have to guess again, Sherlock Holmes,” concluded 
Carl with a shrug. 

“Your father used to work for Mr. Coulter at 
the mill,” Mrs. McGregor put in in a subdued 
voice. 

“ But Dad died two years ago and Mr. Coulter 
never has troubled to send us anything before. 
Why should he begin now? ” Carl argued. 


176 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ Did you examine our basket? ” It was Cap¬ 
tain Dillingham who spoke. 

“ No, but we can. It’s out in the pantry. Run 
and fetch it, Martin, that’s a good boy. I’m will¬ 
ing to bet a hat, though, ours Has no ‘ Coulter ’ 
written on it. Yours got scrawled on somehow at 
the market. The name doesn’t mean anything. 
Here’s Martin now. Get out your glasses, you old 
detective, and look and see what you can find. If 
you can find Coulter on our basket, I’ll eat my 
head,” Carl hazarded with confidence. 

“You hear him, witnesses,” Hal said, holding 
up an impressive finger. 

Then taking the basket from Martin, he inverted 
it. 

“ Will you never acknowledge, oh, you unbe¬ 
liever, that I am wiser than you?” he presently 
jeered. “Come! Look at the thing yourself 
over here under the lamp. If that word isn’t 
‘ Coulter ’ I’ll eat both your head and mine.” 

“Jove! It is Coulter!” was all Carl could 
stammer. 

“ What did I tell you! ” 

“ But why should Mr. Coulter send a Christmas 
basket to us?” speculated Carl in an awed whis¬ 
per. 

“ I’m not telling you why. I’ve not got as far 
as that,” Hal answered. “ All I said was that the 
name, Coulter, was written on both baskets and 
that the natural conclusion is that Mr. Coulter 
was their sender.” 

“ I don’t believe it. Why, it would be ridicu- 


A CLUE 


177 

lous,” Carl protested. “ Mr. Coulter probably 
never so much as heard of us in all his life. Why 
should he? I’m sure we don’t know him.” 

“ I’m afraid your theory isn’t quite sound, Hal,” 
rejoined Mrs. McGregor. “ While it is pos¬ 
sible that for some reason of his own Mr. 
Coulter, for whom you work, may have sent you 
a Christmas basket there is not one shred of 
anything to link him up with us. Mr. Mc¬ 
Gregor, it is true, was in Davis and Coulter’s em¬ 
ploy many years; but he was only one of many 
hundred workmen and scarcely knew old Mr. 
Coulter by sight. Since the old gentleman has 
died and the son has come into the firm the last 
thread that bound us to the company has been 
snapped. Old Mr. Coulter is gone, and Mc¬ 
Gregor, with his twenty-five years of service in 
the mills, is forgotten. As for this young John 
Coulter who has taken his father’s place — I’ve 
never set eyes on him.” 

“ But why should the name be on each of the 
baskets?” Hal insisted, still unwilling to sur¬ 
render the idea he cherished. 

“ Ask the market man, laddie. It’s a question 
for him. My notion is that in the rush somebody 
put it there by mistake,” replied Carl’s mother. 
“ The marvel isn’t that Coulter was written on the 
baskets; the marvel is that some word in Choctaw 
or Egyptian wasn’t on ’em. Why, if you’d seen 
those clerks down at the store going round as if 
their heads were clean off their bodies you 
wouldn’t wonder queer things were written on the 


1 7 8 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

hampers we got. I’m amazed they arrived at all.” 

“ But somebody sent them,” Hal affirmed. 

“I’ll join you there! Somebody sent them,” 
nodded Mrs. McGregor. “ Up to that point your 
arguments are perfectly logical. Those baskets 
never came of themselves. But as for Mr. John 
Coulter being their giver — why, you are mad as a 
March hare to think it for a moment. What 
would he be doing with all his college education 
and his years of study in Europe sending the likes 
of us Christmas presents? He has plenty of pres¬ 
ents to give in his own family, I guess.” 

“Well, maybe you’re right and the name only 
happened,” Hal conceded. “ Still, it’s queer, 
isn’t it? Queer that the name should be Coulter, 
I mean.” 

“ It’s a coincidence for you because you chance 
to work for him; but to us it means nothing.” 

“ Yes, I can see that now,” Hal agreed. “ Then 
I guess there is nothing left before going home but 
to see Carlie carry out his little wager.” 

“ My wager? ” Carl repeated. 

“ You were going to eat your head if the name 
of Coulter was on the bottom of this basket, re¬ 
member.” 

“Oh!” Carl grinned a sickly grin. 

“ Going to default? ” 

“No, not default — merely postpone the cere¬ 
mony,” Carl declared. 

“ Oh, you old crawler! Well, if you are going 
to put off the show I must be getting home or 
Mother will think I have been waylaid and my 


A CLUE 


179 

watch stolen. So long, everybody, and pleasant 
dreams.” Then thrusting his face back into the 
room through the narrowing crack of the door, he 
added with elfish leer, “ Just the same, I still think 
that Coulter had something to do with those 
baskets.” 

Before a protest could be raised the door banged 
and he was gone. 


CHAPTER XIII 


HAL REPEATS HIS VISIT 

Whoever the mysterious Mr. X was he suc¬ 
ceeded in keeping his identity a secret much better 
than did the donors of the O’Dowd’s Christmas 
dinner. A secret when shared by too many be¬ 
comes no secret at all and so, alas, it proved in this 
case. And yet no deliberate prattling divulged 
the story. Its betrayal was purely accidental. 

On the morning following the holiday, which, 
by the way, chanced to be Sunday, Mrs. O’Dowd 
came up to borrow the McGregor’s can opener. 
In Mulberry Court somebody was always borrow¬ 
ing. An inventory of each family’s possessions 
gradually became public property, so that all the 
neighbors knew exactly where to turn for anything 
needed. In fact, the residents of the house so 
planned their purchases that they would not over¬ 
lap what the dwelling already contained. No¬ 
body thought, for example, of buying a washing 
machine since the Murphys had one; nor did any 
one see cause for investing in a wringer, when a 
perfectly good one was owned by the McGregors. 
Even such small things as egg beaters, double 
boilers, and ice picks, all had an established place 
of residence and were used in a community spirit. 
All day long from morning until night little boys 


HAL REPEATS HIS VISIT 181 

and girls trailed up and down the long flights of 
stairs either to borrow or to return to their rightful 
owners articles that had been a-visiting. It al¬ 
most required a card catalogue to keep track of 
where one’s things were. 

“ Do you know who has the egg beater? ” Mrs. 
McGregor would interrogate on a baking day. 

And some of the children whose function it was 
to procure or carry hence the egg beater generally 
recalled its whereabouts. 

“ It’s down to Murphys’, Ma,” Martin would 
shout. “ Don’t you remember that Thursday she 
was making custard? ” 

Oh, yes; Mrs. McGregor did recollect. It 
flashed into her mind at the time that with eggs so 
high the Murphys might well do without custard. 
Nevertheless, she had not said so. One did not 
venture to criticize one’s neighbors — even if the 
gossip connected with the various borrowings did 
entail first-hand information concerning their af¬ 
fairs. For by common consent it was not Mul¬ 
berry Court etiquette to borrow without stating 
exactly the service required of the article in ques¬ 
tion. When, for instance, you sent an emissary 
to ask for the O’Dowds’ ironing board you said: 

“ Can Ma take the ironing board so she can iron 
out Mary’s dress ’cause she’s got to have her white 
one clean to speak a piece in at school.” 

Then the O’Dowds knew exactly why the iron¬ 
ing board was needed and just how necessary it was 
to have it, and not only did they promptly deliver 
it up, but the next time you met them they in- 


182 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

quired how Mary got on speaking her piece and 
whether she was frightened or not. In this way 
a friendly interest was created. 

To have borrowed the ironing board and not 
have detailed the accompanying facts would have 
been a heinous crime and would have exempted 
any person from loaning it. Under such circum¬ 
stances it would have been perfectly excusable to 
send back word by the messenger: 

“ Mrs. O’Dowd is sorry but she is using the iron¬ 
ing board herself to-day.” 

But when Mary was to speak a piece, that was 
quite a different matter. 

Mulberry Court had a pride in its tenants. 

Mary McGregor certainly must not appear in a 
dress that had not been freshly ironed. Why, the 
people on the street would think Mulberry Court 
bereft of all sense of propriety! No, indeed. 
Mary McGregor must make a fitting showing if 
the whole house had to turn to to achieve the de¬ 
sired result. And if by any chance her family 
could not iron her dress, why somebody else must. 
Mulberry Court would make a proper showing 
no matter at what personal sacrifice. 

And the same self-respecting spirit came to the 
fore on all great occasions. When the Sullivan’s 
baby was christened was not Mrs. Sullivan arrayed 
in Mrs. McGregor’s bonnet, Mrs. O’Dowd’s coat, 
and Mrs. Murphy’s skirt, that she might make a 
truly genteel impression? There was the dignity 
of Mulberry Court to be maintained. 

Thus it followed that borrowing was no un- 


HAL REPEATS HIS VISIT 183 

usual act and therefore when on Sunday morning 
Mrs. O’Dowd presented herself at the McGregor’s 
door and announced that she was going to have a 
chowder of canned corn for dinner and wanted 
the can opener, beyond a conversation as to the 
nourishment corn chowder contained; the brand 
of canned goods one bought; the price of it per 
can; the quantity of milk required and the price 
of that milk per quart, nothing further was said, 
unless it was, perhaps, to mention the crackers and 
inquire whether the O’Dowds used pilot biscuit or 
oysterettes. But of course the can opener was not 
denied and while Mary went to fetch it and Mrs. 
McGregor continued cutting Nell’s hair Mrs. 
O’Dowd, with arms akimbo, reviewed the pleas¬ 
ures of the day before and compared Christmas 
dinners. 

“ Such a feast as we had,” declared she. “ Such 
turkey! It melted in your mouth and ran down 
your throat almost before you had the chance to 
taste it. And the sweet potatoes! You’d believe, 
actually, they were just dug up out of the ground! 
Had you sweet potatoes in your basket, Martin? ” 

“ Sure we had! ” returned the small boy, not to 
be outdone. 

“ And then the celery! It was that handsome it 
was fit to be set on a bonnet— I’m telling you the 
truth.” 

“ Mary gave the celery,” lisped Nell. 

“ Hush! ” Martin cried. “ You weren’t to tell 
that.” 

“ I didn’t tell what I gave. Ma told me not to 


184 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

and I haven’t,” announced wee Nell proudly. 

“ But you’re not to tell what anybody gave,” 
Martin commanded. “ I haven’t told a thing, 
have I, Ma?” concluded he in triumph. 

“ Hush, Martin, hush!” cautioned his mother 
quickly. “ Pay no heed to them, Mrs. O’Dowd; 
sure after the holiday they hardly know what 
they’re saying.” 

“ But — but — ” Mrs. O’Dowd glanced keenly 
about, viewing the guilty faces and the indignant 
looks the older children centered on the two small 
culprits. She was a quick-witted woman and in¬ 
stantly put two and two together. 

“ So it was Mary sent the celery, was it? ” re¬ 
peated she. “ And who, pray, bought the tur¬ 
key? ” The temptation the question presented 
was too great for the youthful conspirators. 

“Uncle Fwedewic! Uncle Fwedewic!” cried 
Nell and Martin in a breath. 

“ He bought it wiz his very own money,” Nell 
went on to explain before she could be stopped. 

Oh, the game was all up now! Of what use was 
it to pretend anything after that? Martin heaved 
a sigh of delight. For days the secret had trem¬ 
bled on his tongue, making life uncomfortable and 
unnatural. Constitutionally it was his habit to let 
slip from that artless member anything that lurked 
at its tip and as a result he held secrets in abhor¬ 
rence. Now the truth was out and he for one was 
glad it was. He would no longer be dreading an 
encounter with the O’Dowds or be under the try¬ 
ing necessity of acting a part. 


HAL REPEATS HIS VISIT 185 

“ The candy was mine,” he announced calmly. 
“ I gave it and Uncle Frederick paid the man.” 

Julie ventured over the threshold. 

“ So it’s you we have to thank for our dinner! ” 
she exclaimed. 

“ You don’t have us to thank” put in Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor quickly. 

“ But you surely wouldn’t have me be taking a 
dinner like that and not thanking you for it,” said 
Julie. “ And neither O’Dowd nor I had an ink¬ 
ling! Think of our coming up here Christmas 
morning and all of you keeping so mum! ” 

“ We’d have kept mum longer, if it hadn’t been 
for Nell and Martin,” Carl asserted. “ I don’t 
see why they couldn’t shut up, Ma.” 

“ A secret’s no easy treasure to have in one’s 
possession,” Mrs. O’Dowd put in quickly. “ And 
you must remember they are but mites — Nell and 
Martin. Indeed, in my opinion, it’s a miracle 
they didn’t blurt it out long before this. You 
wouldn’t get a child of mine to hold his peace any 
such while; neither the big ones nor the little could 
do it. Well, well! It was a happy day you gave 
us and you certainly deserved the dinner you got 
yourselves. And you had no notion when you sent 
ours you were to have one of your own.” 

“ No! When it came we thought for a moment 
you had sent our present back,” Carl explained. 

“ In other words, you were going without your 
dinner to give it to us,” commented Julie. 

“ We had our tree,” Mary interrupted. “ We 
didn’t need both things.” 


186 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“ It’s few would have done what you did,” 
Julie remarked quietly. “ O’Dowd and I will not 
be forgetting it, either.” 

Tears came into the eyes of the little woman 
and as if words failed her she wheeled about and 
disappeared down the dim hallway. 

“ At least, she was not put out by our doing it,” 
commented Mrs. McGregor, after her neighbor 
had gone. “ I feared some she might be. But 
evidently she accepted the gift just as we meant it. 
So that’s settled! Now if we could only find out 
where our own dinner came from and say as much 
to its giver, I’d be entirely content. I’ve taxed my 
brain until my head is fair aching and still I’m no 
nearer having an idea where that basket of ours 
came from than the man in the moon.” 

“ I guess you will just have to rate it as coming 
from the fairies,” smiled her brother, “ and let the 
matter rest there; that is, unless Hal Harling gets 
another inspiration.” 

“Another inspiration! Sure the inspiration he 
had wasn’t worth much,” sniffed Mrs. McGregor. 
“ Unless he can provide a better one than that I 
sha’n’t be listening to him.” 

“ You may as well not be slandering him, for 
here he is now,” Carl cried, jumping up to admit 
his chum whose footfall he had heard on the 
stairs. 

“ I’m not slandering him,” Mrs. McGregor 
continued, imperturbably greeting the visitor. 
“ In fact, what I’ve said about him I’d as lief say 
to his face. I’m telling them, laddie,” said she, 


HAL REPEATS HIS VISIT 187 

turning brightly to Hal, “ that I have scant opin¬ 
ion of you as a detective.” 

The big fellow laughed good-humoredly. 

“ They are not putting me on the Scotland Yard, 
force yet, I must own,” he admitted. “ But how 
do you know that I won’t track down Mr. X yet? 
Give me time. No great mystery can be solved all 
in a minute.” 

“ I’ve let you sleep on it and so far as I can see 
you are no better off this morning than you were 
last night,” was the crisp retort. 

“ I’m not, and that’s the truth,” Hal returned, 
pulling off his coat. “ I’m simply going to bury 
the matter the way a dog buries a bone, and then 
some day I’ll dig it up and go to work at it again.” 

“ I guess that’s as good a scheme as any,” Captain 
Dillingham declared. “ Sometimes if you do not 
fuss at a riddle it solves itself. Come, sit down and 
talk to us while Nell gets her hair cut. It may 
help to keep her quiet.” 

The child, seated on the table and muffled to 
her neck in her mother’s apron, brightened. 

“Tell story,” commanded she. “Hal tell 
story.” 

“I? Not on your life! ” protested the big fel¬ 
low in consternation. “ I never told a story in all 
my days. Your uncle Frederick will tell you 
one.” 

“ Uncle Frederick will do nothing of the sort,” 
growled the captain, as he puffed contentedly at his 
pipe. “ It’s Hal who is going to tell the story. 
He is going to explain to us exactly what they do 


188 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


with the bales of cotton when they reach the mill.” 

“ That? Oh, I can tell you that, all right, for 
I see it done from morning to night, year in and 
year out. But I don’t call that a story, do you? ” 

“ It will be a story to us, no matter what it is to 
you, for remember that although I have often 
loaded cotton and carried it hither and thither 
round the world I’ve never seen what became of it 
after we thumped it down on the dock.” 

“ Haven’t you? That’s funny!” smiled Hal. 
“ And yet after all I don’t know as it is, either. 
How should you know what is done with it? I 
shouldn’t have if I hadn’t happened to spend my 
days at Davis and Coulter’s. Well, then, as soon 
as we get the bales we first weigh them and make 
a record of each. Then they are opened up and 
the matted material is spread out so the coarsest 
of the dirt, such as leaves, sand, stems, and bits of 
dry pods will be loosened and fall out. To ac¬ 
complish this we have opening machines of various 
kinds with beaters, fans, and rollers and by these 
methods the cotton is cleaned and pressed into a 
flat sheet or lap. Afterward we start in to mix 
the varieties in the different bales.” 

“ What for? ” questioned Carl. 

“ Oh, because to get good results you have to 
have a blend of varieties,” Hal explained. 

“ But isn’t cotton cotton? ” inquired Mary. 

“ Not a bit it isn’t,” grinned young Harling. 
“ Some cotton is far and away better than another. 
Often it has had better care, better weather, or bet¬ 
ter soil; or maybe it has grown more evenly and 


HAL REPEATS HIS VISIT 189 

therefore has less unripe stuff mixed in with it. 
Or perhaps it was a finer, more highly cultivated 
kind in the first place. There are a score of ex¬ 
planations. Anyhow it is better, and because it is 
we do not use it all by itself. Instead we use it to 
grade up some that is less fine in quality. After 
the bales have been classified we take a little of 
this and a little of that until we have struck a good 
average. It goes without saying that we never 
mix two extremes, or put the best and the worst 
together. That wouldn’t do at all. We aim to 
produce a mean between these two qualities. All 
this mixing is not, however, done by hand, as you 
might think to hear me talk. No, indeed! We 
have bale-breakers or cotton-pullers to do the 
work. We simply put several sheets or laps of 
different quality cotton one on top of another and 
then let the spikes of the machines tear it into frag¬ 
ments and mix it up.” 

“ Oh! ” Mary murmured. 

“ Afterward comes the scutching,” went on Hal, 
“ which is really only a continuation of the same 
process although the scutching machine makes the 
laps of cotton of more even thickness. Next we 
card the material to find out where we stand. It 
is brushed or combed out — whichever you prefer 
to call it, and the remaining dirt and short, unripe 
fibers are removed. This leaves the real thing, 
and the machine gathers it up and twists it into 
a sort of rope about an inch in diameter called a 
sliver.” 

“ What a funny name! ” Tim remarked. 


1 9 o CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ I suppose it is when you stop to think of it,” 
Hal answered. “ Well, anyhow, that’s what a 
sliver is. In some mills they draw the cotton out 
into these long strands and double together four 
or eight slivers before they are carded. The card¬ 
ing lengthens or stretches them to the size of one 
and therefore you get a greater uniformity of size. 
Beside that, all the crossed or snarled fibers are ar¬ 
ranged so that they lie out straight and smooth, 
and when this is done the material is ready for the 
bobbin and fly frames.” 

“ And what, for goodness’ sake, might those 
be? ” demanded Captain Dillingham. 

“ I certainly am a great hero coming here and 
knowing so much,” Hal answered with amuse¬ 
ment. “ I think you will understand them better, 
sir, if you forget what they’re called and remember 
only what they do. They actually combine three 
processes: slubbing, intermediate, and roving, and 
their aim is to draw the sliver out until it is thinner, 
more uniform, and. cleaner for spinning. Surely 
that is simple enough. The spinning is done on a 
mule or a ring frame — sometimes the one is pre¬ 
ferred, sometimes the other. Generally speaking, 
the thread from one of these machines is what is 
used for weaving purposes. Sometimes, though, 
it happens that an order comes for a crackajack 
fine yarn of the best possible quality and then an¬ 
other combing or carding process follows which 
takes out everything shorter than fibers of a speci¬ 
fied length. As a result about seventeen per cent, 
of waste is thrown out, as great a percentage as in 


HAL REPEATS HIS VISIT 


191 

all the other processes put together. Naturally 
it is a pretty expensive operation and it makes the 
yarn thus turned out high in price.” 

“ I suppose such yarn goes only into the finest 
quality goods,” observed Captain Dillingham. 

“ Exactly! ” was Hal’s answer. 

“ It all sounds simple as rolling off a log,” Carl 
affirmed. 

“ If it seems so to you, just you think back over 
the problem Arkwright and some of the other in¬ 
ventors, the fruit of whose labors we are now reap¬ 
ing, had to solve,” put in Uncle Frederick. “ Even 
I, who am ignorant as an Egyptian mummy con¬ 
cerning cotton manufacture, can appreciate to 
some extent what they were up against. You must 
remember that no material is stronger than its 
weakest part. You have, for instance, a thin place 
in a string; it matters not how strong that string 
may be in other spots; pull it taut and it will snap. 
The thick places do not help make the string strong 
as a whole. So it is with thread. You have to 
draw it out until every portion of it is as strong 
as every other — a pretty little conundrum! It is 
the drawing, twisting, and doubling which makes 
the thread first uniform and then strong. Try 
working-out devices that shall do all these things — 
devices that shall twist and then double without un¬ 
twisting, for example. You’ll find it worse than a 
three-ringed circus.” 

“That’s right, sir!” Hal agreed heartily. “I 
remember when I first went into the mills how 
puzzled I was at seeing the bobbins whirling in 


i 9 2 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

opposite directions. It seemed as if one was sim¬ 
ply undoing what another had done. I thought 
they all ought to turn the same way. It was months 
before I got through my head what they were up 
to.” 

“ I hadn’t thought of the twisting and doubling 
part,” Carl murmured. 

“ You decide with that thrown in maybe the 
answer to the puzzle isn’t so easy, eh? ” responded 
Hal with a teasing smile. 

“ I might have to ponder over it,” Carl con¬ 
fessed suavely. 

“ Ponder! I guess you would. What’s more, 
you’d have a good smart headache before you were 
through your pondering, I’ll bet!” jeered Hal, 
tweaking his chum’s hair. 


CHAPTER XIV 


SPINNING YARNS 

All good things, alas, come to an end and the 
McGregor’s Christmas holidays were no exception 
to this immutable law. A day arrived when Carl, 
Mary and Tim were obliged to return to school, 
and following swift on the heels of this dire occa¬ 
sion came a yet more lamentable one when Uncle 
Frederick Dillingham was forced to go back to 
his ship and sail for China. The latter calamity 
entirely overshadowed the former and was a very 
real blow not only to Mulberry Court, where the 
captain had become an object of universal pride 
and affection, but also to the Harling family who 
had come to depend on his daily visits for cheer and 
sunshine. 

“ I don’t see why somebody else can’t sail your 
ship to China, Uncle Frederick, and let you stay 
here,” wailed Mary. 

“ Somebody else sail my ship! ” gasped the cap¬ 
tain, every syllable of the phrase echoing con¬ 
sternation. “ Why, my dear child, I would no 
more turn the command of the Charlotte over to 
another person than you would exchange your 
mother for somebody else’s. The Charlotte kind 
of belongs to me, don’t you see? She is my — well, 


i 9 4 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

I reckon I can’t just explain what she is. All I 
can say is that where she goes I go — if I am 
alive.” 

“ But — but the sea is so terrible,” objected the 
timid Mary. “ So dangerous.” 

For answer Captain Dillingham burst into a 
peal of laughter. 

“ Dangerous? Why, lassie, there isn’t a quarter 
part the danger on the water there is on land. I 
have come nearer to being killed right here in 
Baileyville than ever I have while cruising in mid¬ 
ocean. Folks take their lives in their hands every 
time they cross a city street. Then, too, aren’t 
there high buildings to topple over; flagpoles to 
snap asunder, signs to blow down; chimneys to 
shower their bricks on your head; not to mention 
the death-dealing currents that come through tele¬ 
graph and telephone wires? Add to this threaten¬ 
ing collection trees and snow-slides and slippery 
pavements and you have quite a list of horrors. 
Danger! Why, the land is nothing but maelstrom 
of catastrophes compared with which the serenity 
of the open sea, with nothing but its moon and 
stars overhead, is an oasis of safety. Of course 
there are certain things you must be on your guard 
against while on the water — fogs, icebergs and 
gales. But where can you find a spot under God’s 
heaven entirely free from the possibilities of mis¬ 
hap of some sort? I’d a hundred times rather take 
the risks the sea holds than run my chances on land. 
Besides, aren’t we a city, same as you? Just be¬ 
cause we are afloat and you can boast the solid 


SPINNING YARNS 


i 95 


ground under your feet is it a sign we are not citi¬ 
zens with laws and duties? With the wireless 
singing its messages to us wherever we go, we 
certainly are not cut off from the rest of the 
world.” 

For a moment he paused to catch his breath. 

“ No, siree! ” continued he. “ We folks on ship¬ 
board simply belong to a floating republic, that’s 
all. It’s our country same as this is yours, and we 
love it quite as much as you do.” 

“ I never thought of the ocean that way,” Mary 
returned with a thoughtful smile. “ It’s always 
seemed to me a big, big place without any — any 
streets or — ” 

“ But we have streets, lassie,” cried her uncle, in¬ 
stantly catching her up. “ Regular avenues they 
are. Travel ’em and you’ll meet the passing same 
as you would were you to drive along a boulevard. 
They are the ocean highways, the latitudes and 
longitudes found to be the best paths between given 
countries. In some cases the way chosen is shorter; 
or maybe experience has proved it to be freer from 
fog or icebergs. Anyhow, it has become an ac¬ 
cepted thoroughfare and is as familiar to seafar¬ 
ing men as if it had been smoothed down with a 
steam roller and had a signpost set to mark it. 
Never think, child, of the ocean as a lonely, un¬ 
charted waste of water. It is a nice quiet place 
with as much sociability on it as a man wants. 
You don’t, to be sure, rub elbows with your neigh¬ 
bors as you do ashore; but on the other hand you 
don’t have to put up with their racket. Pleasant 


196 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

as it is to be on land the hum of it gets on my nerves 
in time, and I am always thankful to be back 
aboard ship.” 

“ We’ll miss you dreadfully, Frederick,” his sis¬ 
ter remarked. 

“ But remember I’ll be putting in at various 
ports off and on,” returned the captain, “ and be 
mailing you letters, postals and trinkets of one sort 
and another. Moreover, you’re all going to write 
to me, I hope — even Martin. For if there’s any 
one thing a sailor man looks forward, to it’s the 
mail that awaits him in a foreign port. I must 
own that with all the virtues the sea possesses the 
landlubber has the best of us on mail service. 
Rural free delivery is one blessing we can’t boast. 
No blue-coated postmen come sauntering down 
our watery streets to drop letters and papers into 
our boxes. We have to call for these ourselves 
same as you might have to go to a post-office here 
ashore if the government wasn’t as thoughtful and 
generous as it is. Our post-offices are sometimes 
pretty far apart, too, and I’m driven to confess we 
don’t always get our mail as often as we’d like. 
That’s one of the outs of seafaring. So when we 
do touch shore and go looking for letters it is dis¬ 
appointing not to find any. Don’t forget that. 
After I’m gone you will get busy with your school, 
and your sewing, and your fun, and you will not 
think so often about Uncle Frederick.” He put 
up a warning hand to stay the protest of his listen¬ 
ers. “You won’t mean to,” continued he kindly, 
“ but you’ll do it all the same. It’s human nature.” 


SPINNING YARNS 


197 

This sinister prediction, however, did not prove 
true. 

For days after Captain Dillingham said good- 
by to Baileyville, Mulberry Court, the Harlings 
and the McGregors were inconsolable. 

“ The house isn’t the same with Uncle Fred¬ 
erick gone, is it, Mother? ” commented Mary. 

“ No, it isn’t. We miss him very much.” 

“I should say we did! Such a lot of things 
happen all the time that I want to tell him,” Carl 
broke in. “ Why, only this morning the teacher 
gave me a book to look up something and the first 
page I opened to had a lot about foreign trade. A 
month ago I wouldn’t have cast my eye over it a 
second time but now, because of Uncle Frederick, 
that sort of thing interests me. So I read along 
down the left-hand column and what should it be 
about but the first spinning mills! I wished Uncle 
Frederick could have read it.” 

“ You must write him about it,” flashed Mary. 
“ What did it say, Carl?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” her brother answered awk¬ 
wardly. “ I’m not sure that I can remember ex¬ 
actly. I wasn’t learning it to recite.” 

“ But you read it, didn’t you? ” 

“ Sure I did, Miss Schoolmarm! ” 

“ Then you must remember some of it,” Mary 
persisted. 

“ Oh, I remember scraps of it. It said at the 
outset that nobody really knew when people began 
to spin. Most likely they got the idea from pull¬ 
ing out fibers of cotton or wool long as they could 


198 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

make them with their fingers, and then twisting 
the stuff together into larger and longer threads. 
As they could do this better if they had the end 
fastened to something, they got the notion of using 
a stick or some sort of spool or spindle to wind 
the thread up on as they made it. They would go 
walking round with a mass of material under one 
arm and this crude spindle with the thread on it 
under the other. The book said that even now in 
certain foreign countries there were peasants who 
did this. It was during the reign of Henry VII 
that spindles and distaffs first appeared in Eng¬ 
land. Afterward people improved on the idea and 
made spinning wheels. The people of India had 
had these long before, so you see they weren’t 
really new; but they were new to England. To 
judge from the book they weren’t any great shakes 
of spinning wheels; still they were better than 
nothing. Later on the English got finer ones such 
as were used in Savoy and these not only had a 
spindle but a flyer and bobbin. It was most likely 
these Saxony wheels that started inventors trying 
to make something that would be better yet.” 

Holding the plug he was whittling for his dou¬ 
ble-runner up to the light, Carl halted. 

“ I think you’ve done pretty well, son,” re¬ 
marked his mother over the top of her sewing. 

“ I think so too,” Carl returned with unaffected 
candor. “ I had no idea when I started that I 
could remember so much. I guess it was because 
I was interested in the story and wasn’t trying to 
learn it. When you think you’re learning things, 


SPINNING YARNS 


199 


you get to saying them over and over until by and 
by what little sense there is in ’em seems to evap¬ 
orate. At least, that’s the way it is with me. If I 
could just read and not keep thinking that I was 
trying to learn I’d get on twice as well. Even this 
page of stuff would have looked different if I’d 
been going to learn it. You see, you never have 
the chance to learn what you want to at school; it’s 
always what they pick out for you. Naturally you 
don’t care as much about it as you would if it was 
what you’d chosen yourself.” 

Mrs. McGregor could not resist smiling in sym¬ 
pathy with this philosophy of education, novel as 
it was. 

“ Now what the teacher sent me to look up in 
that book,” went on Carl, “ was some old foreign 
treaty. Of course I read it over because she made 
me. But do I remember a line of it? Nix! I 
told her what the book said as fast as I could, so 
to get it off my soul before I forgot it. I don’t 
see what she cared about it for anyway, for it 
didn’t seem to hitch up to anything. But this spin¬ 
ning business hitched right up to Uncle Frederick, 
Hal Harling and what we’ve been talking about. 
I don’t see why Miss Dewey couldn’t have let me 
alone to learn about that.” 

“ Probably she didn’t dream you were inter¬ 
ested in it,” said Mary. “ How should she, 
pray? ” 

“ I know it. I suppose she didn’t,” answered 
Carl with fairness. “ She certainly is no mind 
reader; and I didn’t mention it.” 


200 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“ Then don’t go blaming poor Miss Dewey,” 
Mary retorted. “ Besides, what kind of a school 
would she have if every child in it refused to learn 
anything but what he cared about. She would 
have fifty kids all going fifty different ways.” 

Carl sighed. Plainly the flaws of the educa¬ 
tional system were too many for him. Neverthe¬ 
less he attempted a modest defense of his theory. 

“ No, she wouldn’t,” contradicted he. “ Some 
of ’em don’t want to learn anything anyhow, and 
since they have to they are as well pleased to learn 
one thing as another. Billie Tarbox, for instance, 
hasn’t any preferences; he just hates all highbrow 
stuff alike. And the Murphys and Jack Sullivan 
wouldn’t care a hurrah what they learned. All 
Jack wants to do when he grows up is to run a steam 
roller and if he can do that he’ll be perfectly satis¬ 
fied.” 

“ But he’ll have to learn something before he 
can,” observed Mrs. McGregor. 

“ No, he won’t, Ma. Mike Finnerty who lives 
in his block runs one and he doesn’t know a thing,” 
Carl replied simply. 

“ On the contrary, I think you’ll find Mr. Mi¬ 
chael Finnerty knows much more than you give 
him credit for,” retorted Mrs. McGregor. “ He 
probably knows more than he himself realizes. He 
may not have learned about engines out of books; 
but if not he has learned about them from actual 
contact with them. All learning does not come 
from between book covers, sonny. Experience is 
a wonderful teacher. Books simply give us the 


SPINNING YARNS 


201 


same result without making us stumble along to 
learn everything ourselves. They are somebody 
else’s experience done up in a little bundle and 
handed to us as a shorter cut. Mr. Michael Fin- 
nerty has had to take the long way round to get his 
education, that is all. For education is nothing but 
a training which enables us to live and be useful 
to others; and if when we’re through we can’t do 
that all the book learning in the world isn’t going 
to be worth much to us.” 

“ Why, Mother, I thought you were terribly 
keen on schools,” ejaculated Mary, aghast. 

“ So I am, my dear. A fine mind thoroughly 
trained is a glorious tool; but far too often people 
forget that it is simply a tool. Just sharpening and 
polishing it and never turning it to account for 
other people isn’t what it was made for. Learn all 
you can so you will be able to help the world along 
the better. But don’t just soak up and soak up 
what books tell you and then store it away in your 
head like so much old lumber.” 

“ But what can you do with what you read, 
Ma? ” Carl questioned, laying down his whittling 
and facing his mother. 

“ Precisely what you have been doing this morn¬ 
ing, for one thing,” was the quiet answer. “ Pass 
it on to somebody else who hasn’t read it. Mary 
and I, for example, hadn’t read about England and 
the early spinning wheels. We hadn’t the time to; 
nor had we the book. You’ve managed to tell us 
quite a lot.” 

“ Maybe I could tell you some more, if you 


202 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

wanted me to,” said Carl, urged on by altruistic im¬ 
pulse. 

“ Of course we do,” his mother replied. 

Carl took a long breath and considered thought¬ 
fully. 

“ Well, what knocked me was that at first the 
English government didn’t want any cotton cloth 
made,” began he. 

“ Why not? I should think they would have 
been delighted! ” Mary put in. 

“ Oh, the English made a lot of woolen goods, 
and they had a hunch that cotton cloth might cut 
into the trade for wool and fustians. So Parlia¬ 
ment passed a law placing a five-pound fine on any 
of the British who wore things made of colored 
calico. As the restriction also covered the use of 
painted, dyed or stenciled cottons it knocked out all 
these products for hangings, bedspreads, or cov¬ 
erings.” 

“ How horrid of them! ” said Mary indignantly. 

“ They were darned afraid of their trade being 
interfered with, you see,” explained her brother. 
“ I believe you could use an all blue calico and of 
course there was no objection to making cotton 
cloth into underclothes; also you were allowed to use 
a cloth woven of cotton and wool. But you mustn’t 
wear any pretty figured cotton dresses. When the 
people heard that they kind of rose up, and when 
the government found out they wouldn’t stand for 
such a law, in 1736, after amending it, they made 
another one letting folks wear any kind of deco¬ 
rated cloth they had a mind to, so long as its warp 


SPINNING YARNS 


203 


was entirely of linen yarn. This provided Eng¬ 
land with a market for her flax. But once the law 
was passed the delighted manufacturers began to 
turn out colored cloth by the bushelful, making any 
amount more than they could sell just because they 
were allowed to. This led to another difficulty — 
where were they going to get enough linen warp? 
The cottagers who worked at home with their little 
spinning wheels could not begin to turn out the 
supply that was needed, and weavers of cloth went 
traveling everywhere over England buying up all 
the linen thread people would sell and begging for 
more. And not only did they want linen warp but 
they wanted it stronger and coarser so they could 
weave heavier cloth. Now the spinning wheels 
only turned out single thread. What was to be 
done? ” 

“ Well, what was to be done? ” echoed Mary. 

“ It was trying to find an answer to all this weav¬ 
ing muddle that set John Kay to inventing his fly¬ 
ing shuttle,” replied Carl. “ Until then it had 
taken two people to send the heavy shuttles with 
the warp on them across the looms. His new flying 
shuttle did the same work with only one person to 
operate it. You’d think that an improvement in 
weaving, wouldn’t you; and you’d have the right, if 
you worked out the idea, to believe the weavers 
would be pleased? ” 

“ Certainly,” returned his mother. 

“ Well, instead of being pleased, the workmen 
were crazy,” Carl announced. 

“Why?” 


204 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


“ Because they were such blockheads they were 
afraid Kay’s invention was going to put them out 
of their jobs. In fact, they got so soured on poor 
old Kay that his life was actually in danger and 
he had to get out of England. There’s gratitude 
for you! ” concluded the boy with a shrug. 

“ But later on they learned better, I suppose, and 
sent for him to come back,” Mary suggested. 

“ That’s the way people always do.” 

“ These people didn’t,” was Carl’s grim retort. 

“ Not on your tin-type! They never got Kay back 
again in spite of all he’d done for them. Instead, 
he died somewhere abroad without receiving much 
of anything for his invention. Wouldn’t that 
make you hot? In the meantime, about 1738, a 
chap called Lewis Paul got out a double set of 
rollers that would draw out thread and twist it — 
a stunt previously done by hand. So it went. 
Here and there men all over England, knowing 
the need of better spinning devices, went to it to 
see what they could do. John Wyatt, who, like 
Paul, was a Birmingham native, tried spinning by 
means of rollers; and for ever so long it was a ques¬ 
tion whether it was he or Paul who should be cred¬ 
ited with the invention of the roller and flyer ma¬ 
chine. After twenty years I believe Paul was 
granted the patent. In point of fact, though, Ark¬ 
wright thirty years before had tried to get a patent 
on spinning by rollers, and no doubt both Lewis 
Paul and John Wyatt got the suggestion from him. 
Anyhow, the idea spread like wildfire and immedi¬ 
ately no end of people went to work fussing with 


SPINNING YARNS 


205 


rollers, flyers, and spindles. As a result, many 
small things were added to improve the spinning 
contrivances in use at the time. Then in 1764, or 
thereabouts, along came James Hargreaves, a Lan¬ 
cashire Englishman, with a machine that would 
spin eleven threads at once.” 

His listeners gave a little gasp. 

“ That was some stride ahead, wasn’t it? ” com¬ 
mented Carl, as proudly as if he himself had done 
the deed. “Yes, siree! Hargreaves’s spinning 
jenny was a big step forward. And as usual it 
raised a row. When he got it all perfected five 
years later and went to take out a patent on it, his 
right to it was questioned and his life made miser¬ 
able. But, anyhow, people couldn’t say he built on 
Arkwright or Paul, for whether they liked it or 
not they had to admit his idea was quite new. His 
jenny only spun cloth rovings, however. The rov¬ 
ings had to be prepared first; that is, the cotton had 
to be carded and given its first twist. After that 
Hargreaves was ready for* it and could lengthen, 
twist, and spin into yarn eleven threads of it.” 

“ I hope the ungrateful workmen did not get 
after him as they did after John Kay,” Mary mur¬ 
mured. 

“They did! At least, although they did not 
drive him out of England they drove him out of 
Lancashire. So he went to Nottingham; and after 
arming himself with his patent he and a Mr. James 
built a spinning mill there, one of the first to be 
built in England.” 

“ That must have made his fortune and repaid 


206 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

him for all his hard labor,” remarked Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor, as she held up a violet cloud of spangled 
tulle and examined it critically. 

“ The book said he didn’t make much money,” 
Carl announced. “ He wasn’t as poor as John Kay 
and did not die in want; but he certainly never 
became rich.” 

“ I suppose now that they had spinning factories 
England was satisfied,” said Mary. 

“ Satisfied? ” repeated Carl with scorn. “ Satis¬ 
fied because there was one little measly spinning 
factory? You bet your life people weren’t satis¬ 
fied ! To be sure some of the hardest of the invent¬ 
ing was done. But don’t for a minute imagine you 
are through with Richard Arkwright. He was 
still on the job.” 

“ You told us about him before.” 

“ Trying to get a patent on spinning by rollers? 
Yes, I did. Well, he was still alive and of course 
when everybody was talking about spinning he 
couldn’t help hearing the gossip even if he did 
happen to be a barber. In fact while he traveled 
round buying and selling hair for wigs he must 
have met no end of people and talked with them, 
so I guess he heard more of the news of the day 
than did lots of other men. Barbers always seem 
to be sociable chaps. He was quite a mechanic, 
too, in his way; machinery had always interested 
him.” 

“ In spite of his making wigs and toupees for 
ladies and gentlemen?” laughed Mrs. McGregor 
mischievously. 


SPINNING YARNS 


207 


“ Sure, Ma! He had been born in Lancashire 
just as Hargreaves had and so he probably was par¬ 
ticularly interested in Hargreaves. When any¬ 
body from your own part of the world does any¬ 
thing smart you always are all ears about it, you 
know. So Arkwright found out all he could by 
gossiping about Hargreaves’s spinning jenny, and 
no one was quicker to see what such an invention 
would mean to England than he. The idea was 
almost like a magnet to him. He hunted up Mr. 
Highs, who had experimented a lot with spinning 
machinery, and talked with him; he also met John 
Kay, who at one time had helped Highs. And 
because he was such an intelligent listener and 
seemed to understand machinery so well these men 
babbled to him about their hobby. Having heard 
all they had to say Arkwright went off by himself 
and set quietly to work to try out on a small scale 
certain notions of his own. These notions had to 
do with spinning cotton by drawing rollers, and 
they worked perfectly. That was enough for him. 
He announced his success, got his patent, was 
knighted by the crown, and became rich. How’s 
that for a yarn? Isn’t it like the story of Puss-In- 
Boots?” 

“ It is certainly magical,” declared Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor, who had dropped her work in her absorp¬ 
tion. “ I am glad, too, to know there was one in¬ 
ventor who prospered.” 

“I am afraid he was the only one — at least 
of those interested in spinning,” replied Carl 
gravely. 


208 carl and the cotton gin 

“ All the others both before and after him lost 
out so far as money went.” 

“ Who did come after Arkwright? ” queried 
Mary. 

“ Crompton — Samuel Crompton,” was the 
prompt reply. “ He was a little boy when Ark¬ 
wright was tooting round the country trading hair 
and wigs. The two men may even have happened 
to see one another somewhere. That wouldn’t be 
impossible, you know. Anyway, during the time 
that Arkwright was fighting the right to his roller 
patent; going into partnership with rich men who 
could finance his schemes; and building his chain 
of mills at Nottingham, Cromford, and Matlock, 
Crompton was growing up. As some of these 
mills were worked by horse power and some by 
water power, the name of 1 water frame ’ clung to 
Arkwright’s invention. Crompton, like every¬ 
body else who lived at the time, saw the rivalry 
between Hargreaves’s jenny and Arkwright’s wa¬ 
ter frame. It was of course silly that there should 
have been rivalry, for the two machines did quite 
different sorts of work. Arkwright’s water frame 
was better for making the warp and long threads 
of cloth; and Hargreaves’s jenny turned out better 
weft, or the kind of thread that went from side to 
side. It was only a matter of the sort of thread 
you needed, understand.” 

“ Then they certainly needn’t have been jealous 
of one another,” commented Mrs. McGregor. 

“ Fortunately in time they found that out and 
realized that each loom had its advantages; to-day 


SPINNING YARNS 


209 


both are used — one for one purpose, one for an¬ 
other. But no matter how many enemies Ark¬ 
wright had everybody, whether they liked him or 
not, was compelled to admit that he gave the spin¬ 
ning industry a tremendous boost and did more 
toward starting our present factory idea than did 
any one else. Not only was he a tireless worker, 
but he was quick as a flash to see what was needed. 
Maybe he wasn’t any too scrupulous whose prop¬ 
erty he took; but at least he took the things he 
seized more for the public good than his own, I 
really believe. For instance, there was Lewis 
Paul’s carding engine; he introduced that into 
Lancashire and added to it a stripping comb, or 
doffer, that made it about fifty per cent, better than 
it ever had been before. That is what he did to 
everything he touched. He swooped down on any 
machine he saw and then proceeded to improve it. 
It didn’t matter to him who it belonged to. Of 
course you can’t do that, even if you are an inven¬ 
tor,” grinned Carl. “ Naturally it got Arkwright 
in wrong and he was given some pretty hard 
names. Still he did a lot of good for all that. 
And, anyway, whatever he was, I take my hat off 
to him because he began to study writing, spelling, 
and arithmetic when he was fifty years old. That 
gets me! ” 

“ Poor soul! He probably had no chance for an 
education when he was younger,” remarked Mrs. 
McGregor. 

“No, he hadn’t. But picture it! Jove! If I 
had gone that long without books, and had been 


2io CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


able to invent all sorts of things into the bargain, 
darned if I wouldn’t have stuck it out,” Carl said. 

“ But you told us Arkwright became rich and 
was knighted,” replied Mrs. McGregor. “ No 
doubt this resulted in his meeting educated people, 
gentlemen and ladies, in whose company he felt 
ashamed, uncomfortable, and at a disadvantage.” 

“ I’d feel that way, wouldn’t you? ” nodded 
Mary. “ I do feel so even when I am with Uncle 
Frederick, and my teacher, and — and you, 
Mother.” 

“ Don’t include me, dear,” protested her mother 
sadly. “ Alas, I know little enough. But it does 
help you to understand how that poor, hard-work¬ 
ing Richard Arkwright suffered. Often, I’ll 
wager, he was angry at himself for his lack of 
education even though it was not his fault. I 
don’t wonder, snubbed as he probably was at times, 
that he determined he would learn something.” 

“ His hard-earned education did not do him 
much good, Mother, for he died when he was 
sixty,” said Carl. 

“ Well, at least he lived long enough to see his 
success,” Mary put in brightly. 

“ He was luckier than Crompton,” replied her 
brother. 

“ Oh, tell us about Crompton. Do you remem¬ 
ber anything about him? ” Mary inquired. 

“ Crompton was one of the most important of the 
spinning inventors,” continued Carl. “ But he 
did not set out to be an inventor any more than 
Arkwright did. To be sure he wasn’t a barber or 


SPINNING YARNS 


211 


anything as ordinary as that. He was a musician, 
a person of quite another sort, you see. His fam¬ 
ily were better bred and started him out with a 
good education — the very thing Arkwright 
lacked. Crompton might easily have mixed with 
the class Arkwright wanted to mix with but he 
wasn’t as good a mixer. Instead of gossiping 
with everybody he met, as Arkwright had done, 
Crompton kept by himself and lived quietly at 
home with his mother.” 

“ A sensible lad! ” Mrs. McGregor whispered. 

“ Maybe,” grinned her son. “ Still, it made 
people call Crompton unsociable. I guess, 
though, most geniuses are that. They always 
seem to be so in books; and Crompton certainly 
was a genius. He hadn’t an ounce of brain for 
business but he had no end of ideas; and it was 
those that got him on in life. For you see, al¬ 
though the Cromptons were what Ma would call 
‘ gentle people ’, they were not rich. They were 
comfortably off, though, and if the father had not 
died when the children were small they might 
have been very well off indeed. As it was, Mrs. 
Crompton had to help out the finances by carding, 
spinning, and weaving cloth at home when her 
other work was done. Ever so many other women 
did it, so it was considered an all right thing to do. 
Since Kay’s flying shuttle had made it possible to 
spin more stuff the weavers, as I told you, were 
scouring the country for all the warp and weft 
they could lay hands on, so everybody who could 
spin thread was sure of a market. The prices of- 


2i2 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


fered, and the difficulties the weavers were having 
to get material enough, were common talk at every 
English cottage fireside. So of course it wasn’t 
strange that Mrs. Crompton, along with the rest 
of her neighbors, heard this gossip and also heard 
about Hargreaves’s spinning jenny. Now Samuel 
helped his mother to spin evenings when he wasn’t 
playing at the village theater and she decided it 
would be nice to get one of these spinning jennies 
for him to use. So she did, and it wasn’t long 
before he could not only use it, but could turn out 
weft enough for cloth to clothe the whole Cromp¬ 
ton family.” 

“ Then I don’t see but the Cromptons were 
nicely taken care of,” Mary announced. 

“That wasn’t the point, smartie!” her brother 
objected. “ Of course they were well enough off 
themselves, but the village of Bolton where they 
lived was strong on its muslins and quilt materials 
and what the people wanted was to be able to spin 
fine muslins such as were imported into England 
from India and China. If such goods could be 
made by uneducated Orientals why should not 
people as clever and ingenious as the English make 
them? ” 

“Why, indeed?” 

“They couldn’t do it; I don’t know why,” an¬ 
swered Carl. “ They just could not contrive to 
draw fine enough thread. Of course Samuel 
Crompton had always seen the Bolton goods since 
he was a little boy and so knew as well as did 
everybody else in the town what a wonderful thing 


SPINNING YARNS 


213 


it would be if finer thread could be made. So 
after his mother got her spinning jenny for him he 
began to fuss round with it simply to find out 
whether he could make it any better or not. He 
experimented five years and at the end of that time 
he had made a ‘ muslin wheel ’ that was something 
like Arkwright’s water frame and something like 
Hargreaves’s jenny and yet wasn’t like either of 
those things. Therefore, as a joke, it was called a 
i mule.’ ” 

“ Oh, I’m awfully glad he made it! ” ejaculated 
the sympathetic Mary. “ Five years was such 
a long time to work. Wasn’t it splendid of 
him!” 

“ Other people, I’m sorry to say, were not of your 
opinion,” Carl replied. “ As I said before, the 
spinners and weavers were a crazy, jealous lot. 
You remember how they treated Kay and Har¬ 
greaves? Well, they hadn’t improved any and 
were still just as mad at spinning inventions and 
spinning inventors as they were before. Every¬ 
thing that did away with hand labor was, they 
argued, an enemy and was going to put them out 
of business.” 

“ But how could they expect they were going to 
stop the progress of the world? ” asked Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor. 

“They didn’t think it was progress; they were 
just that stupid,” returned Carl. “ And I guess 
even if they had thought so it would have been 
the same. They were determined to use nothing 
that reduced the number of hand workers. So 


214 


CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


they set themselves to take out their vengeance on 
all spinning machinery, and in order to put an end 
to it mobs of workers went about smashing to 
atoms every spinning jenny they could find that 
had more than twenty spindles.” 

“ How nasty! ” breathed Mary. 

“ How stupid! ” rejoined her mother. 

11 Now, of course, Samuel Crompton wasn’t go¬ 
ing to have his new 1 muslin wheel ’ smashed to bits 
so he did not tell anybody what he had invented. 
He simply took the thing to pieces and hid the 
parts round his workroom. Some of them he put 
in the ceiling, some he tucked away under the 
floor.” 

“ Bully for him! ” Mary cried. “ It was a reg¬ 
ular kid trick.” 

“ I know it,” agreed Carl. “ He wasn’t really a 
kid, though, because he was twenty-seven years 
old at the time and was married and his wife had 
just come to live at the big Crompton homestead. 
Well, after a little while, things settled down and 
then Samuel Crompton dragged out the parts of 
his hidden muslin wheel, put them together, and 
he and the lady he had married went to work mak¬ 
ing the finest and strongest yarn they could. Such 
fine thread had never before been made in all Eng¬ 
land and you better believe when it began to ap¬ 
pear it created a stir. Everybody in Bolton went 
round trying to find out where it came from and 
after the tidings spread about that the Cromptons 
were the people who were producing the mysteri¬ 
ous yarn, the town swelled with pride. How 


SPINNING YARNS 


215 

was the thread made? That was the next ques¬ 
tion! ” 

“ And the Cromptons didn’t tell, of course.” 

“ That’s where you’re wrong, Mary Ann! I 
wish they hadn’t; but they did.” 

“ That was a pity,” interrupted Mrs. McGregor. 

“ You’d have thought they would have been 
wise enough not to, wouldn’t you? ” Carl observed. 
“ But I told you Samuel Crompton had no great 
head for business. He was trusting and decent, 
just the way Eli Whitney was. He had no idea 
people would steal his invention. So when the 
mill owners and factory folks came surging to his 
house, he not only let them see the loom but even 
allowed some of them to try it when they wrote 
out a promise or pledged their word that they 
would pay him for the privilege.” 

Mrs. McGregor shook her head. 

“ I’m afraid,” said she, “ that was all he ever 
heard of the money.” 

“ Of course it was, Ma! Evidently you know 
more about human nature than poor Crompton 
did. He was utterly amazed when they wouldn’t 
pay up. And when there were others mean 
enough to hide in the room over his workshop, 
bore holes in the floor, and spy down at the magic 
machine, all was lost.” 

“ He held no patent, then? ” 

“ He hadn’t one thing to protect him. The 
sharks just came down on him, grabbed his idea, 
and walked away with it unmolested,” answered 
Carl. 


216 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ Oh, that was pitiful — pitiful!” exclaimed 
Mrs. McGregor, laying aside her work. 

“ It was a darn shame! ” echoed her son. 

“ And the Cromptons never got any money at 
all? ” asked Mary. 

“ Not then, anyhow.” 

“ Well, at least Mr. Crompton had the joy of 
doing what he set out to do — nobody could take 
that satisfaction away from him,” mused Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor. 

“ Yes, but would that have consoled you for find¬ 
ing that people were so low-down? ” answered 
Carl with scorn. “ I’ll bet that one fact disap¬ 
pointed him more than the loss of the money. It 
would me.” 

“ Greed, I regret to say, sonny, is at the bottom 
of most of the evils of the world,” retorted his 
mother sadly. “ What finally became of the 
Cromptons? ” 

“ Oh, the whole thing got on Crompton’s nerves 
and he moved to another town where he buried 
himself,” Carl answered. “ After a while, though, 
he came back to Bolton because he needed money 
and opened a little factory there. It ran along 
for almost ten years, doing business on a small 
scale. Imagine it! Then in 1800 some Manches¬ 
ter manufacturers (who had probably got rich 
on his invention and whose consciences troubled 
them most likely) collected a purse for him that 
his mill might be enlarged. By this time as a re¬ 
sult of various improvements Crompton’s idea had 
expanded until one of his looms had as many as 


SPINNING YARNS 


217 

three hundred and sixty spindles, and another had 
two hundred and twenty.” 

“ And years before the spinners had destroyed 
those that boasted more than twenty,” commented 
Mary thoughtfully. 

“I know it! Ironic, wasn’t it? Poor old 
Crompton! He just didn’t seem to have any luck,” 
asserted Carl. 

“ It wasn’t want of luck, my dear, so much as 
want of wisdom — the wit to grasp opportunity 
when it came,” contradicted his mother. 

“ You mean 1 there is a tide in the affairs of men ’, 
Ma, and all that? ” Carl grinned. “ Who says I 
don’t know Shakespeare when I meet him? Any¬ 
how, I guess Bill was right; he certainly was in 
this case. Even the money the English government 
later collected and presented to Crompton got 
dribbled away and lost in various unfortunate en¬ 
terprises. Crompton got poorer and poorer, and 
if it hadn’t been that friends took care of him he 
might almost have starved.” 

“And did his star never rise again?” inquired 
Mrs. McGregor. 

“ Never! He just died in poverty and left other 
people to grow rich on what he had done.” 

“ That is the world, I am afraid,” was Mrs. 
McGregor’s observation. “ Still he had given hu¬ 
manity a hand up and done a great service to his 
generation. That knowledge was better than all 
the fortunes he could have possessed.” 

“ But he might so easily have had both, Ma,” 
returned the practical Carl. “ I call the help to 


218 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


humanity slim comfort when you’ve been cheated 
out of what should have been yours. I shouldn’t 
even have been grateful had I been Crompton for 
the fine monument they set up to his memory long 
after he was dead. What they ought to have done 
was to treat him square while he was alive to en¬ 
joy it.” 

“ See that as you go through life you do not for¬ 
get your own philosophy, my son,” cautioned his 
mother. 


CHAPTER XV 


TIDINGS 

The following week brought a letter from Uncle 
Frederick and very important the McGregors felt 
when they took it, adorned with its English stamp, 
from the mail box in the hall. Mulberry Court 
did not receive so many letters that the arrival of 
one was a routine affair. No, indeed! When a 
real letter came to any of its residents the fact was 
remarked upon by the recipient with a casualness 
calculated to veil the pride he or she experienced. 

“ Mrs. O’Dowd, for example, in passing through 
the hall would call carelessly to one of her neigh¬ 
bors: 

“ I’ve just had a letter from my sister Jane in 
Fall River. Plague the girl! What can she be 
writing to me about? ” 

Nevertheless, in spite of this ungracious ob¬ 
servation Mrs. O’Dowd was much pleased to be 
seen with the letter and overhear her friends whis¬ 
pering among themselves: 

“ Julie O’Dowd had a letter from Jane to-day. 
It was in a blue envelope and looked like quite a 
thick one. What do you suppose the girl had 
to say? Most likely Julie will tell us by and by.” 

And sure enough! The prediction was a true 


220 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


prophecy, for before the day was out Julie had 
made an errand to every flat in the house and be¬ 
fore leaving had read to each family extracts from 
the letter, interspersing the paragraphs with a 
running line of comment concerning Jane and her 
history since babyhood. By evening the letter 
had become blurred and dingy with much han¬ 
dling and Julie could recite it from beginning to 
end. 

Yet for all the interest evoked by Julie’s letters 
and the other rare epistles that found their way 
into Mulberry Court these missives came after all 
only from American cities which lay within a 
radius of a hundred miles of Baileyville. They 
had not traveled far, any more than had the per¬ 
sons to whom they were addressed. They were not 
letters written on thin foreign paper and bearing 
unfamiliar postmarks and the fascinating stamps of 
other nations. Only the McGregors could boast 
such splendor as that. 

Realizing this, Mrs. McGregor would have 
been short of human if she had not been a wee 
bit self-conscious and forced to suppress from her 
voice the satisfaction that echoed in it when she 
observed in off-hand fashion: 

“ Oh, by the way, I had a letter to-day from my 
brother who is in China.” 

China! It was a name to conjure with. What a 
medley of visions it brought to the imagination! 

And if you could not go to China, as none of 
Mulberry Court ever expected to do, think of 
having a relative who did! And if you were not 


TIDINGS 


221 


blessed with such an illustrious connection why 
the next best thing was to know some one who was. 
Even to know some one who had a brother in 
China and who sent home letters from that magic 
realm imparted a certain glory. 

There was no denying the McGregors’ foreign 
correspondence lent prestige to Mulberry Court. 
Perhaps a Manila postmark was cut out and be¬ 
stowed on Mrs. Murphy, who tucked it away in 
a cracked cup and displayed it on occasions to a 
visitor; or maybe the letter heading from a Genoa 
hotel was given to Mrs. O’Dowd and furnished 
her with conversation for a week. In outbursts 
of great generosity stamps or postcards were do¬ 
nated to especially favored individuals. 

Hence when on this particular morning the post¬ 
man pressed Mrs. McGregor’s bell and she 
hastened down four flights to open her mail-box 
a head protruded from almost every door as she 
made her way back upstairs and there was ample 
opportunity for her to observe to interested spec¬ 
tators, “ I seem to have a letter from England. 
Judging from the postmark, my brother must be 
in Liverpool.” 

In this case the admiration with which the name 
was repeated might not have found so ringing 
an echo in Mrs. McGregor’s voice. She had been 
to Liverpool. For all that, however, she main¬ 
tained a dignified front and bore the letter up¬ 
stairs, sinking with delight into the first chair that 
blocked her path when she arrived and calling 
to her children: 


222 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ I’ve a letter from your Uncle Frederick, Tim- 
mie. Think of that! It comes all the way from 
Liverpool with King George neat as a pin smil¬ 
ing out of the corner of it. Yes, you may take the 
envelope, Carl, but don’t let the baby be finger¬ 
ing and tearing it. Show Martin the King’s pic¬ 
ture. He’s old enough now to learn how he looks. 
Mercy on us! What a ream your Uncle Fred¬ 
erick has written. One would think it was a 
book! I never knew him to write such a long 
letter in all my life. I hope he isn’t sick. Don’t 
hang over my shoulder, Mary; it makes me ner¬ 
vous. And don’t let Nell come climbing up into 
my lap while I’m reading. Go to Mary, like a 
good girl, darling; mother’s reading a letter that 
came all the way from England.” 

Thus did Mrs. McGregor preface the perusal 
of the document she held in her hand. But when 
she had spread out the voluminous sheets and 
was preparing to read them she was again inter¬ 
rupted : 

“ Now, Timmie, don’t you and Carl start quar¬ 
reling the first thing about the stamp. You ought 
to be ashamed of yourselves. Who had the last 
one? Carl? Then this one goes to you and there 
must be no more bickering about it. If there is I 
shall keep it myself. One would think you boys 
were a pair of Kilkenny cats the way you squabble 
with each other! Now are you going to be quiet 
and listen to what Uncle Frederick has to say or 
are you not? Then don’t let me hear another yip 
out of either of you.” 


TIDINGS 


223 

Instantly the room was so still you could have 
heard a pin drop and to an accompaniment of 
crisply crackling paper Mrs. McGregor began: 

Liverpool, January 29, 1924. 
Dear Sister Nellie—, 

Well, here I am in England with the Atlantic rolling 
between me and Baileyville. We had a splendid voy¬ 
age with the sea as smooth as the top of your sewing- 
machine. (Ain’t that like your Uncle Frederick to 
joke about the ocean! He’s crossed it that number of 
times it’s no more to him than the pond in the park. 
Well, I’m glad he had a smooth trip, anyway.) 

At Liverpool, where we docked, we ran into our first 
trouble, for there was a longshoremen’s strike on and 
not a soul could be found to unload our cargo or lend 
a hand in loading us up again. For three days we 
were tied plumb to the wharf with nothing to do but 
twirl our thumbs. So having business at Manchester 
I decided to go up there and stay with a Scotchman 
who was my first mate years ago. (Now wasn’t that 
nice!) Old Barney turned the town inside out he was 
so glad to see me (I’ll wager he was!) and among 
other things took me through some big cotton mills 
where a nephew of his was working. For the benefit 
of the children I’m going to write a bit about them. I 
could not but wish on top of what we all talked about 
that they might have been with me to see how wonder¬ 
ful the spinning machinery is. Were it actually alive 
it could not work with more brains. (Your Uncle 
Frederick always will have his joke!) 

Indeed, the man who took us about told me that 
the self-acting mule of to-day, founded on the invention 
of Crompton, is a product of hundreds of minds and I 


224 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

can well believe it. It isn’t the principle that is new, 
for apparently no one has ever improved on Cromp¬ 
ton’s idea; but since that time this machinist and that 
has added his bit to make the device more perfect. 
(Now ain’t you glad you read about Crompton, Carl? 
This letter would have been Greek to you if you 
hadn’t.) We saw mules as long as a hundred and 
twenty feet, and from nine to ten feet wide carrying 
some twelve or thirteen hundred spindles, and turning 
out about two yards of thread in a quarter of a min¬ 
ute. How is that? And all this clicking, humming, 
whirling machinery was operated by a man and a couple 
of boys. Carl, Tim and I could have run the thing 
had we known how. 

(Your Uncle Frederick don’t forget you boys, you 
see!) 

They told me it was Richard Roberts, a Manchester 
man, who in 1830 improved the self-act ; ng mule and 
brought it to its present state of practical working 
order. I take off my hat to him and to those on whose 
ideas he built up this marvelous invention. The thing 
does everything but talk, and maybe it’s as well oft 
without doing that. Lots of folks would be. 

(I must read Julie O’Dowd that; it will make her 
laugh. It sounds so like your uncle you’d think him 
in the room this minute.) 

It draws out the carded cotton, puts in the necessary 
twist, and spins the thread, easy as rolling off a log, 
levers, wheels, springs, and a friction clutch all doing 
their part. I couldn’t help thinking if each of us hu¬ 
mans played his role as well, and did the thing given 
him to do as faithfully, how much better a world we 
should have. We don’t begin to pull together for a 
result the way those wheels and pulleys did. Instead, 
each of us goes his own way never cooperating with 


TIDINGS 


225 

his neighbor and in consequence we have a helter-skelter 
universe. (How true that is!) 

Nevertheless in spite of us—not because of us—the 
world advances. I sometimes wonder how it does it. 
Crompton, for instance, would scarcely have recog¬ 
nized his old mule that gave subsequent inventors their 
inspiration. Nor would Arkwright know his water 
frame could he see what has happened to it. (Mark 
you, Carl, how he speaks of Arkwright. All that 
would slide off you hadn’t you read that book!) 

Of course there is a lot of rivalry between English 
and American spinning machinery and I found that 
some of the mills here have both. 

The reeling of the yarn after it is spun is done chiefly 
by women. I do not mean they make it up into skeins 
by hand; they operate the machinery that winds it; also 
that which makes it up into packages for the market. 
This process is also interesting to see. Strings are 
put in to separate the laps of the yarn; cardboards 
hold it in place; it is pressed flat; the bundle is tied; and 
the paper wrapper bearing the name of the manufac¬ 
turer as well as any printed advertising he wishes to 
circulate, is whisked about it. 

I was a little surprised to find they made no spool 
cotton on any of these machines. Up to date no ma¬ 
chine has been invented that will directly spin thread 
strong enough for sewing. All that has to be a sepa¬ 
rate process and therefore the yarn is taken to other 
machines where it is drawn finer and where several of 
the fine threads can be twisted into one. The spinners 
know just how many fine threads to put together to get 
certain sizes of cotton. To make number twelve, for 
example, they put together four strands of what is 
called 48’s that have been doubled, or perhaps 50’s, 
since the twist contracts the yarn. 


226 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


After this has been twisted the proper number of 
times the thread is passed over flannel-covered boards 
to be cleaned. Next it travels through a small, round 
hole something like the eye of a needle so that any 
knots or rough places can be detected. If the threads 
are found to be strong and without flaws two to half 
a dozen of them are put together in a loose skein and 
they are twisted in a doubling machine. Afterward 
the thread is polished, cleaned, and run off on spools 
or bobbins. That is the road Mother’s spools of cot¬ 
ton have to travel before they get to her. How seldom 
we think of this or are grateful for it! 

There are in addition other ways of preparing cot¬ 
tons for embroidery, crocheting, or knitting, not to 
mention methods used to finish cotton yarn so that it 
will look like woolen, linen, or silk fiber. Because 
cotton is a cheaper material than any of these it is often 
mixed with them to produce cheaper goods. You 
would be amazed to see how ingenious manufacturers 
have become in turning out such imitations. Cotton, 
for example, is mercerized by passing it very rapidly 
through a gassing machine not unlike the flame of a 
Bunsen burner. Here all the fuzz protruding from it 
is burned away, and when polished and finished it looks 
so much like silk you would have trouble in telling 
whether it was or not. This sort of yarn is used to 
make imitation silk stockings and many other arti¬ 
cles. 

Now I have told you quite a story, haven’t I? And 
no doubt I have wasted good ink and paper doing it, 
for I presume Hal Harling could have told you the 
same thing quite as well if not a deal better. You 
read him this document and ask him to fill in the gaps. 
But at least even if Hal can improve on my tale I have 
demonstrated one thing and that is that I have remem- 


TIDINGS 


227 

bered you whenever I have seen anything I thought 
you would be interested in. 

I send much love to each of the family. Tell Mary, 
Carl, and Tim to take good care of Mother and the 
babies. Be sure to greet for me the Harlings, 
O’Dowds, Murphys, and all the neighbors at Mulberry 
Court. We leave Liverpool for the Mediterranean 
next week and I will write you from Gibraltar or 
Naples. In the meantime do not forget the good ship 
Charlotte or your affectionate 

Frederick. 

“ As if we could forget him! ” whispered Mrs. 
McGregor, folding up the many sheets and re¬ 
placing them in their envelope. “ It isn’t all chil¬ 
dren have the kind uncle you have. Carl, maybe 
you’d like to be stepping over to the Harlings 
with this letter. Grandfather Harling would de¬ 
light to read it, I know. The days are long ones 
for him and I’m sure he must miss your Uncle 
Frederick dropping in to bring him the news.” 

Only too ready to comply with her request Carl 
rose. 

“ You can leave the letter until they all have 
seen it; then Hal or Louise can bring it back. I 
want Mrs. O’Dowd to have it next. She’s men¬ 
tioned by name in it and it will please her to read 
the words herself.” 

Thus did Mulberry Court share its blessings! 


CHAPTER XVI 


A RELUCTANT ALTRUIST 

As spring came and Carl was more out of doors 
playing ball and tramping the open country his 
watchful eyes were continually scanning passing 
motors for a possible glimpse of the mysterious 
red racing car and its genial owner. The boy had 
never forgotten this delightful stranger or quite 
abandoned the hope that he might sometime see 
him again. But, alas, day succeeded day and 
never did any of the fleeting vehicles his glance 
followed contain the person he sought. Neither 
was the search for the sender of the Christmas 
baskets rewarded. 

Spasmodically since mid-winter the Harlings 
and McGregors had cudgeled their brains to dis¬ 
cover this elusive good fairy until at length, ex¬ 
hausted by fruitless effort, they agreed to inter 
Louise’s philanthropic Mr. X in a nameless grave. 
Despite that fact, however, he was not forgotten 
and tender thoughts clustered about his memory. 

In the meantime May followed on April’s heels 
and presently June, with her greenery and wealth 
of roses arrived, and then the startling tidings 
buzzed through Baileyville that Mr. John Coul¬ 
ter was to be married. The news thrilled young 
and old alike for was not young Mr. Coulter the 


A RELUCTANT ALTRUIST 


229 


junior partner of Davis and Coulter; and was not 
Davis and Coulter the heart and soul of Bailey- 
ville? Davis and Coulter meant the mills and 
the mills meant the town itself. Without them 
there would have been no village at all. Boys and 
girls, men and women toiled year in and year out 
in the factories as their fathers and mothers, often 
their grandfathers and grandmothers had done 
before them. If you were not connected with 
Davis and Coulter’s you were not of Baileyville’s 
aristocracy. 

Hence it followed that the prospective marriage 
of Mr. John Coulter could not but be an event 
concerning which the entire community gossiped 
with eager and kindly interest. The lady was 
from New York, people said, and Mr. John had 
met her while doing war work in France. Both 
of them had large fortunes. But the fact that ap¬ 
pealed to the villagers far more than this was the 
intelligence that the wedding was to take place 
at the old Coulter homestead and be followed by 
a fete to which all the mill people and their fam¬ 
ilies were to be invited. How exciting that was! 
And how exultant were those whose connection 
with the mills insured them a card to this mam¬ 
moth festivity! 

Rumor whispered there were to be gigantic 
tents with games and dancing; bands of music; 
fireworks; and every imaginable dainty to eat. 
Some even went so far as to assert there would be 
boats on the miniature lake and a Punch and Judy 
show. Oh, it was to be a fete indeed! 


2 3 o CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

For weeks the town talked of nothing else; and 
as Carl McGregor listened to these stories his re¬ 
grets at not being numbered among Davis and 
Coulter’s elect waxed keener and keener. One 
did not enjoy being left out of a function of such 
magnitude, a party to which everybody else was 
going. Not only did it make you feel lonely and 
stranded but it mortified you to be obliged to own 
you were not of the happy band included in so 
magnificent a celebration. 

“ Now if you’d only have let me take a job at 
the mills as I wanted to, Ma, we might have been 
going to Mr. Coulter’s party along with the rest 
of the world,” Carl bemoaned. “ I always told 
you I ought to go into those mills the way the 
other fellows do. But you wouldn’t hear to it. 
Now see what’s come of it. We are left high and 
dry. I’ll bet we are the only people in Baileyville 
who are not invited to that party. Everybody is 
to be there. If even one member of a family works 
at the mill that lets in the bunch.” 

“ Like the garden parties great families used 
to give their tenants in the old country,” Mrs. 
McGregor murmured reminiscently. 

“ I don’t know about the old country,” replied 
Carl ungraciously, “ but that is what Mr. Coul¬ 
ter is going to do — ask whole families. Gee, but 
it makes me sore! ” 

“ If your father had lived we would have been 
there,” said the boy’s mother sadly. “ Your father 
used to be very good friends with old Mr. Coulter 
and he would have seen to it that none of this 


A RELUCTANT ALTRUIST 


231 


household was left out. But Mr. John we never 
knew. He was always away studying — first at 
school, then at college, and then in Europe. Later 
he started in to be a lawyer in New York and but 
for the war and his father’s death he’d most likely 
be doing that now. But when the old gentleman 
died Mr. John gave up everything else and came 
home to take his place in the firm as his father 
had wished he should. Folks say that in spite of 
not caring much for the mills at first he has per¬ 
sisted at his job until he has become genuinely in¬ 
terested in them. I honor him for it, too, for a 
business life wasn’t his real choice. Of course 
being away so much as he has he is little known 
among the mill people yet; but evidently he 
means to settle down here and is anxious to get 
better acquainted. This wedding party shows 
that.” 

“ Well, there are some he won’t get acquainted 
with,” lamented Carl. 

“ If you mean us I reckon he can worry along 
without,” Mrs. McGregor retorted, with a twinkle 
in her eye. “ He’s managed to up to now.” 

“ We’re just as good as anybody else,” her son 
blazed. 

u Undoubtedly we are,” was the good-humored 
answer. “Nevertheless we won’t be missed in a 
crowd like that.” 

“ Don’t you want to go to the party, Ma?” 

" Why, to tell the truth, I haven’t had time to 
think much about it, sonny — that is, not to be 
disappointed. I’m not pretending, though, that 


232 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

so many parties come my way that a fine one such 
as this wouldn’t be a treat. I can’t remember the 
day I’ve been to anything of the sort. It’s a quar¬ 
ter of a century or more, certainly — not since I 
was a girl and went to the balls the gentry gave in 
Scotland.” 

“ Oh, I do so wish we were going to Mr. Coul¬ 
ter’s,” Carl repeated. 

11 I’ll not deny I’d like to,” confessed his mother 
a bit wistfully. “ Still, were we to go what a stew 
we’d be in! It would mean days of washing and 
ironing; new neckties and maybe shoes for you 
boys; and hair ribbons and folderols for Mary 
and Nell. Before we were all properly equipped 
it would cost a pretty penny. We’d have no right 
to go without looking decent and being a credit 
to your father and to Mr. Coulter who was good 
enough to ask us. So, you see, there are advan¬ 
tages in everything. If we are not invited we 
shall have none of the trouble and expense of it,” 
concluded the woman philosophically. 

“ I wouldn’t mind the trouble, Mother,” burst 
out Carl. “ I wouldn’t even care if I didn’t have 
new shoes. Why, I’d go in my bathing suit.” 

Nodding her head his mother regarded him 
with withering censure. 

“ Yes, I believe you would,” she agreed, “ I be¬ 
lieve you would — if you were permitted. But 
how lucky it is you have a mother. Without me 
you’d be disgracing your name, Mr. Coulter, Bai- 
leyville, and Mulberry Court.” 

Carl grinned in sickly fashion. 


A RELUCTANT ALTRUIST 


233 

“ I’d be having the time of my life! ” announced 
he, undaunted. 

“ Going to an affair like that in your bathing 
suit, you mean? I’m not so sure about that. You 
are always begging to be allowed to wear that cos¬ 
tume or grumbling because you cannot wear it. 
Once, I recall, you actually suggested wearing it 
to church on a hot Sunday. I’m sorely tempted 
sometime to let you have your way and see what 
would come of it. Think, for instance, of your 
sailing into Mr. John Coulter’s wedding party 
in a get-up like that. You’d be ducked in the pond 
in a second.” 

“ I’d be ready for it,” was the provoking answer. 

“ Well, you aren’t going to the Coulter party, 
as it happens, so there’ll be no question of what 
you’ll wear,” returned Mrs. McGregor grimly. 

“ I know I’m not; but you don’t have to rub it 
in, Ma,” Carl answered. 

“ I didn’t mean to rub it in, dear,” was the gen¬ 
tle response. “ I was merely stating facts. Maybe 
it’s as well, too, that we’re not going ourselves, for 
with the Sullivans, Murphys, and O’Dowds all 
invited we’ll have as much as we can do to get 
them all creditably rigged out. I shall let Julie 
wear my black skirt — it just fits her; and Mrs. 
Sullivan my best hat. My waist Mrs. Murphy 
shall take if I can get it washed in time. Most 
likely, too, the O’Dowds will need your clothes 
and Timmie’s.” 

11 Need my clothes! ” Carl shouted. 

“ Certainly. Julie can’t hope to provide things 


234 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

for all that big family to appear in at once. Some¬ 
body will have to turn to and lend a helping hand.” 

“ But what’ll I do while the O’Dowd boys wear 
my clothes? ” wailed Carl. 

“ Why, you can stay in the house. It won’t hurt 
either you or Tim to take an afternoon of rest,” 
came stoically from his mother. 

“ But I don’t want to take an afternoon of rest,” 
Carl protested wrathfully. “ Not on that day of 
all others. I’m going up to Coulters to hang 
round outside and watch the fun. If I’m not in¬ 
vited I can at least do that.” 

“ Carl McGregor! You’ll do nothing of the 
sort. Hang round outside, indeed! Haven’t you 
any pride at all? If you’re not asked to the party 
I should hope you’d have the good taste to keep 
out of the way of it. Hang round outside! You 
ought to be ashamed even to suggest such a thing,” 
said Mrs. McGregor with scorn. “ No, you’ll do 
no lingering on the outskirts of Mr. John’s recep¬ 
tion, you can make up your mind to that. You’ll 
stay politely at home as the rest of us plan to do 
and keep under cover so folks won’t be asking you 
why you’re not up at Coulters. I’ve some regard 
for the family dignity if you haven’t. And since 
you’ll be at home anyway, you may as well take 
the chance to do a kindly deed and let Frankie 
O’Dowd wear your clothes. You don’t want to 
grow up to be selfish.” 

“ My pants will be miles too long for that 
O’Dowd kid,” responded the unwilling altruist 
grudgingly. 


A RELUCTANT ALTRUIST 


235 


“ Oh, his mother can baste them up so they’ll 
do for one afternoon,” was the serene answer. 

“ Huh! I don’t envy Frank going to that party 
with two thicknesses of trousers on his legs,” Carl 
declared. “ If it’s a hot day he’ll melt.” 

“ Beggars cannot be choosers,” Mrs. McGregor 
asserted. “ Likely Frankie will be that tickled to 
go to the lawn party that he won’t care what he 
has on any more than you would. You’d go 
quicker than a wink in basted-up trousers if you 
got the chance.” 

“ You bet I would! Why, I’d go in — in — in 
anything! ” was the fervent affirmation. “ Some¬ 
how, Ma, it just seems as if I couldn’t give up the 
idea of going. I feel as if something must happen 
so we’d get asked.” 

“ Why, Carl — you silly boy! You don’t mean 
to say you are actually cherishing the thought you 
may be invited yet? ” his mother exclaimed in¬ 
credulously. “ Put it out of your head, son, like 
a sensible lad. There isn’t a chance of it, dear. 
The invitations were sent out last week and had 
you been going to get one you would have re¬ 
ceived it days ago. There’ll be no more people 
asked now.” 

“ There might be — some might have been for¬ 
gotten by mistake. Or the invitation might have 
got stuck in the letter box and delayed.” 

“I’m afraid not, Carlie!” his mother said 
gently. “ Mark my words, all the invitations there 
are going to be to that garden party have gone out. 
There won’t be any more. The folks that haven’t 


236 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

had theirs already won’t have none and if you’re 
wise you will face that fact and give up thinking 
about Mr. Coulter and his wedding.” 

The corners of Carl’s mouth drooped but he 
stubbornly insisted: 

“Well, anyhow, Ma, don’t you tell Frankie 
O’Dowd he can have my clothes until the very last 
minute, will you? Promise me that.” 

“ Aye! I’ll not mention the clothes yet awhile. 
I’ll wait at least a day or two. Most likely Julie 
or the Murphys will be up by that time and ask for 
’em.” 

And with this scanty comfort Carl was obliged 
to be content. 

Even the concession that he would be allowed 
to wear his bathing suit while at home was but 
feeble consolation. What did it matter what he 
wore if he couldn’t go to the Coulter fete? 


CHAPTER XVII 


AN ORDEAL 

As the date for the Coulters’ fete approached 
the weather was breathlessly scanned in practically 
every home in Baileyville and throbbing hearts 
almost ceased to beat lest the day be stormy 
or too cold to wear the finery that awaited the 
great occasion. Could one have taken off the 
roofs of the houses between his thumb and fore¬ 
finger as he would lift the cover off a sugar-bowl, 
what a bewildering array of freshly starched mus¬ 
lins, clean shirts and collars, shining shoes, and 
rose-encircled hats would have met his gaze! 

Carl McGregor had spoken truly when he had 
affirmed to his mother that everybody in the town 
was going to the wedding festival. All Baileyville 
was on tiptoe with excitement. The schools were 
to be closed for the afternoon, not alone to do Mr. 
Coulter honor, but because it was quite evident 
that no children would be found in their seats on 
the great day. 

“ We McGregors would be the only kids in the 
whole place, I bet, if they did have school,” de¬ 
clared Carl gloomily. “ You see, Ma, it’s just as 
I told you — everybody’s going to the Coulters’.” 

“ I should think, hating school as you do, you’d 


238 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

be thankful to have a holiday,” commented Mary. 

“ Ordinarily I would,” was the prompt reply. 
“ But what good is this holiday going to do me, 
I’d like to know, with Frankie O’Dowd wearing 
all my clothes, and Mother forbidding me to go 
out of the house in my bathing suit? ” 

“ Well, at least you won’t have to study,” said 
his optimistic sister, making an effort to comfort 
her morose companion. 

“ I might as well study; it would take up my 
mind,” fretted Carl. “ I’ve nothing better to 
do.” 

His ill humor was so tragic that in spite of her¬ 
self Mary laughed. 

“ Well, you needn’t grin so over it, Miss Superi¬ 
ority, or go pretending you don’t wish you could 
go to the lawn party.” 

“ Of course I’d love to go,” Mary confessed 
honestly. “ But if we can’t I don’t see any use in 
mourning about it and talking of nothing else.” 

“ I have to talk about it. I think of it every 
minute.” 

“ Put it out of your head.” 

“ I can’t.” 

“ Nonsense! You don’t try. Why don’t you set 
about doing something and forget it instead of sit¬ 
ting round mooning and working yourself all up? 
You can run down and get the mail right now. 
There’s the bell. Maybe it’s a letter from Uncle 
Frederick.” 

Welcoming the diversion her brother rose with 
alacrity. He was in a mood when any excitement, 


AN ORDEAL 


239 


no matter how trivial, was a boon. Down the 
stairs he ran only to return a second later with a 
square white envelope in his hand. 

“ Is it from Uncle Frederick?” queried Mary 
eagerly. 

“ Nope!” 

“ Oh, I’m sorry, we haven’t heard from him for 
ever so long. I do hope nothing’s the matter. 
Who is the letter from? ” 

“ I don’t know.” 

Something in the reticence of the reply caused 
the girl to glance up. 

“ I’ll take it in to Mother,” volunteered she, 
holding out her hand. 

“ It isn’t for Mother,” Carl answered slowly. 

“ Not for Mother? How funny! None of the 
rest of us ever have letters. Who is it for? ” 

“ It happens to be mine.” 

“Carl!” Dismay and apprehension vibrated 
in the word. 

“ Yes, it’s mine,” her brother repeated. His 
obvious attempt to carry off the episode in jaunty 
fashion failed, however, and it was evident by his 
tense tones that he echoed Mary’s alarm. 

“But who on earth can be writing to you?” 
demanded his sister. 

“I — I — don’t know.” The boy fingered the 
envelope with uneasiness. Mary came nearer. 

“ Carl, what have you been up to now? ” asked 
she. “ That looks like the teacher’s writing. 
Aren’t you going to be promoted or what is the 
matter? ” 


2 4 o CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ How do I know until I read the thing? ” 
snapped Carl. 

“ You’re not in any scrape?” 

“ Not that I know of.” 

“ Honestly? ” 

“ I tell you I can’t think of any. On my honor 
I can’t.” 

“ Oh, well then, it’s probably about your work. 
Most likely you’re behind the class in something 
and Miss Dewey wants to see you. Why don’t 
you buck up and find out what she has to 
say? ” 

“ I’m going to in a minute.” 

“ You’re afraid to open that letter. You’ve done 
something at school you don’t want Mother and 
me to know about.” 

“ I tell you I haven’t.” 

“ Then why, for pity’s sake, don’t you read what 
Miss Dewey has written instead of looking at the 
note as if it was a bomb? Maybe she’s inviting 
you to supper. She does ask the boys sometimes.” 

This possibility was so encouraging that the 
startled expression in the lad’s eyes gave place to 
a serener light. Perhaps after all the missive did 
not portend the calamity that a note from school 
usually did. Maybe his algebra was all right and 
he had not flunked his Latin. The fates may 
have graciously intervened. 

Courageously he tore open the envelope; then a 
sharp cry came from his lips. 

“ Hurrah!” he cried. “Mother! Mother! 
Where are you? ” 


AN ORDEAL 


241 


“ Here, dear, in my room. Is anything the mat¬ 
ter? ” 

Carl rushed off unceremoniously, leaving the 
mystified Mary alone in the middle of the kit¬ 
chen. 

“ Oh, Ma,” he panted, “ what do you suppose? 
We’re going, after all — every one of us! Think 
of it! We’re going! ” 

“ Going where? Have you taken leave of your 
senses, sonny? What are you talking about, 
pray? ” 

“ We’re going to the Coulters’, Ma,” asserted 
Carl, waving the white envelope above his head 
in a frenzy of delight. “ Look! Here’s the bid. 
And across the bottom of the paper Mr. Coulter 
himself has written to say that he’s sorry the in¬ 
vitation has been so delayed and he hopes my 
mother and all of us — even the baby — will come. 
Gee!” 

Quite exhausted, Carl dropped into a chair. 

“ But why should Mr. Coulter send this invita¬ 
tion to you? ” 

“ I don’t know, I’m sure. Maybe Hal Harling 
or somebody told him how disappointed I was at 
not being asked,” returned Carl serenely. 

“ Mercy! I hope not,” ejaculated his horrified 
mother. 

“ Why not?” 

“ Why, it would be almost like asking Mr. Coul¬ 
ter for an invitation.” 

“ He wouldn’t care, I guess,” came comfortably 
from Carl. “ There’s plenty of room and there’ll 


242 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

be food enough so a few people more or less 
wouldn’t bother him.” 

“ But I wouldn’t think of going to a party, or 
letting you, if you had demanded in so many words 
to be invited,” returned Mrs. McGregor with a 
toss of her head. 

“ You don’t mean to say, Ma, that you’re think¬ 
ing of not going,” her son gasped. 

“ I certainly shall not stir a step to Mr. Coul¬ 
ter’s until I find out how we happened to receive 
this remarkable invitation.” 

“Ma!” 

“ I sha’n’t,” repeated his mother. “ Why, the 
bare idea of your trying to get a card to that wed¬ 
ding reception! ” 

“ I didn’t try to, Mother; honest, I didn’t,” pro¬ 
tested Carl. “ I didn’t ask anybody to do a thing 
for me. I was only fooling when I said that. Of 
course Hal Harling knows well enough that I’ve 
been crazy to go. He and Louise couldn’t help 
seeing how sore I was about it. But I never said 
anything else.” 

“ I’m thankful to hear that. One never knows 
what you will do.” 

Mrs. McGregor gave a sigh of relief and taking 
the card examined it. 

“ Perhaps,” she presently observed in a gentler 
tone, “ this invitation has nothing to do with you. 
It may be possible that young Mr. Coulter re¬ 
membered how long your father worked in the 
mills and thought it would be nice to ask us be¬ 
cause of that. If so, it was very thoughtful of 


AN ORDEAL 


243 

him. And most likely the card was sent to you 
because he happened to have heard your name. 
Goodness knows, with the messes you’re in, I 
should think all the town might be aware of 
it.” 

“And you’ll go, Ma?” In his eagerness Carl 
brushed aside the unflattering picture his mother’s 
words presented. 

“ If I find it’s a bona fide invitation and not 
some of your concocting I’ll go — not otherwise. 
It would be ungrateful to snub Mr. John if he is 
trying to be kind. But the thing that makes me 
doubtful is that the envelope should be addressed 
to you. Why wasn’t the invitation sent to me? I 
am the head of the family — or at least I attempt 
to be,” amended she with an upward curve of her 
lips. 

“ Oh, who cares, Ma, who the invitation was 
addressed to?” cut in Carl impatiently. “The 
main thing is that it’s come and we are going to 
the party. I’d go had it been sent to James Fred¬ 
erick. What does it matter? Say, Ma, .isn’t it 
lucky you hadn’t loaned our clothes? We’ll need 
’em ourselves now.” 

“ When is the wedding? ” Mary asked. 

“ Do you mean to say you don’t even know? ” 
inquired her brother with scorn. 

“ I’ve forgotten.” 

“You have! Then you are the only person in 
Baileyville who has,” was the sarcastic rejoinder. 
“ Well, if you must know, it’s the day after to¬ 
morrow.” 


244 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

“ It will be a scramble to get ready, won’t it, 
Mother?” commented the practical Mary. 

“ There certainly will be a lot to do,” Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor agreed. “ However, I guess we can man¬ 
age if everybody will turn to.” 

“ I’ll help,” announced Carl in a burst of mag¬ 
nanimousness. “ I’ll wash and iron all my own 
clothes.” 

“ I’d like a peep at the shirt you washed and 
ironed,” taunted Mary in derision. 

“ I fancy a peep would be enough,” put in her 
mother, laughing. “ No, son, your talent does not 
lie in washing or ironing. But you can take care 
of the youngsters while Mary and I do it. And, 
Mary, we’ll have to get a bunch of fresh flowers 
for your best hat; those pink daisies are too faded 
to wear. We’ll get a new hair ribbon, too. And 
I must have some other lace in the neck of my silk 
waist and — ” 

“ Oh, if you’re going to talk ribbon, artificial 
flowers, and all that rot I’m going over to Har- 
lings,” announced Carl, rising. 

“ Indeed you’re not,” objected his mother. 
“ You’re going to get out the blacking bottle and 
start cleaning and polishing the shoes. There’ll 
be seven pairs to get ready and I want a fine shine 
on every one of them.” 

“ But what’s the use of doing it now? They’ll 
get all dusty again before the day after to-mor¬ 
row,” Carl grumbled. 

“ Not if they’re put away,” came in even ac¬ 
cents from his mother. “ We’ll just have to wear 


AN ORDEAL 


245 


slippers, sneakers and things until Tuesday. I 
guess we can get along. We can’t go leaving 
everything until the last minute or we shall be all 
up in a heap. We must begin directly to get 
things done. I shall braid your hair, Mary, and 
Nell’s right away, so it will be well crimped. And 
Timmie, you and Carl and Martin have all got to 
have baths. Yes, you have, whether you like it or 
not. If you don’t you can’t go. That’s all there 
is about that, so stop fussing. Carl, you put some 
kettles of water on the stove to heat. You boys 
must be scrubbed whether the rest of us are or 
not. You need it most. And Mary, run like a 
good girl and see if you can hunt up a clean pair 
of stockings for everybody — stockings without 
too many holes. Mercy on us! I wish Mr. Coul¬ 
ter had given us a little more notice — indeed I 
do!” 

“ I don’t see who’s going to know, in that push, 
whether I’ve had a bath or not,” persisted the ar¬ 
gumentative Tim. 

“ You don’t? Have you happened to get a 
glimpse of that ebony ring round your neck? ” 
interrogated his mother significantly. 11 Anybody 
who saw that would have some notion.” 

“ I hate a bath! ” 

“ You look it.” 

11 Oh, shut up, Timmie,” cautioned Carl in an 
undertone. “ Don’t go rowing at Ma now. If 
you do she may get her back up and not take you 
to the party at all. I hate to be scrubbed within 
an inch of my life as much as you do, but I’m not 


246 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

saying so to-day. I’d be boiled in oil sooner than 
not go to this party. Besides, your neck is black. 
I’ll bet it will take sapolio to get it clean. But 
don’t go yammering about it. Just hop and do 
as Ma tells you. It’s the only way.” 

Heeding the wisdom of his elder brother Tim 
ceased further protests and hopped. 

Indeed the hopping became very spirited and 
general during the short interval that preceded the 
wedding day. And when at last that glorious 
morning dawned cloudless and fair, what a scar¬ 
let, shining, spotless cavalcade of McGregors its 
radiant light shone upon! 

First there was Mrs. McGregor, hot but trium¬ 
phant in a petticoat that crackled like brittle ice 
beneath her black alpaca skirt and a pair of white 
cotton gloves at the fingers of which she was con¬ 
tinually tugging. Both her hat and Mary’s 
gleamed ebon under a recent coat of blacking — 
so recent that they entertained some concern lest 
it trickle down their heated faces in disfiguring 
rivulets. Mary’s white dress rustled as crisply as 
did her mother’s petticoat and her hair, crimped 
and ironed until it was fuzzy as a bushman’s, 
drifted out behind her, a hempen whirlwind. 
New flowers on her hat and accompanying pink 
streamers afforded her tranquil satisfaction as did 
also the string of coral beads Uncle Frederick had 
once sent from Naples, a gift worn only on very 
special occasions. 

As for the boys, every hair of their heads had 
been plastered securely into place, and blistered 


AN ORDEAL 


247 


with scrubbing, they stood wretched but hopeful 
in a row waiting with patience the moment when 
clean shirts, creased trousers, and sparkling boots 
might be forgotten in the delights the Coulter 
party promised. 

Even Nell and the baby looked unnatural and 
reflected the general discomfort and self-con¬ 
sciousness. 

The getting-ready had been a fatiguing ordeal 
and everybody’s nerves were at the breaking point. 
Systematically Mrs. McGregor had proceeded 
with the process, beginning with the eldest of the 
family, and as each work of art was completed it 
was set aside much as a frosted cake is set away 
to cool, and the next victim was summoned. 

In the meantime those who had been finished, 
motionless in chairs, were allowed the entertain¬ 
ment of watching each succeeding martyr put 
through his round of torture. Yet diverting as this 
had been, the waiting had been tedious, particu¬ 
larly for those who stood at the head of the 
line. 

Now, the rite over, everybody drew a long 
breath and struggled to forget past miseries. 
Therefore when Hal and Louise Harling, who 
were to augment the procession, arrived, every 
cloud was put to flight and the delegation set forth 
in the highest of spirits. 

“ What a pity it is Uncle Frederick Dillingham 
isn’t here!” commented Mrs. McGregor, as they 
went along. “ And what a shame, too, that Grand¬ 
father Harling and your mother, Louise, cannot 


2 4 S CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

see this day! It would furnish them with some¬ 
thing to talk of for weeks.” 

“ Hal and I will tell them all about it,” returned 
the girl brightly. “ Isn’t it splendid you all could 
go? Poor Carl was so disappointed when he 
thought he was to be out of it.” 

“ I know he was,” nodded the lad’s mother. “ In 
fact, it worried me not a little lest it was because 
he made his disappointment so evident that we got 
invited. I was afraid some well-meaning person 
might have taken pity on him and begged him a 
card. Had not you and Hal declared you had 
nothing to do with our being asked, I should not 
have stirred a peg to the party, let Carl plead as 
he might. But now I feel more comfortable about 
our going, although I must confess it puzzles me 
why the invitation was sent to him instead of to 
me. It certainly seems a little funny. However, 
it may have been an accident. Of course Mr. 
Coulter has had a lot to think of and might well 
be forgiven one mistake. It isn’t likely he could 
remember my husband’s name. He was pretty 
good to think of us at all.” 

“They say at the mills that Mr. John is very 
friendly and has ever so many plans afoot for the 
workers. There is even talk of a recreation build¬ 
ing being put up on the factory grounds.” 

“ Not much like his father, who wouldn’t spend 
a cent he didn’t have to,” mused Mrs. McGregor. 

“No. Mr. John is different; everybody says 
so. Besides, he is younger and belongs to a gen¬ 
eration with other ideas.” 


AN ORDEAL 


249 


“ Better ideas, I hope. If children didn’t im¬ 
prove on their fathers where would the world 
be? ” Then suddenly cutting short her philosoph¬ 
ical meditations Mrs. McGregor called imper¬ 
atively : 

“ Timmie, stop chasing those butterflies this 
minute. Do you want to spoil the shine on your 
shoes before you even get to the party? You’ll 
have your collar ruined if you gallop round and 
get so hot. Come back here and walk beside me. 
I’m resolved to land you all at Mr. Coulter’s look¬ 
ing like human beings, whatever happens after¬ 
ward. Then if you prefer to smooch your face 
with dirt and rumple up your hair, I can’t help it. 
But you shall stay clean until you’re inside the 
gate.” 

Glaring for a moment on her subjects with sub¬ 
duing ferocity Mrs. McGregor drew herself up 
and moved majestically in at the entrance of the 
Coulter mansion. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE SOLUTION OF MANY MYSTERIES 

ONCE inside the magic portal of the great estate, 
however, Mrs. McGregor’s task became increas¬ 
ingly difficult. What a bewildering scene it was! 
The green lawns, terraced down to the lake, were 
dotted with tents and from each one floated out 
tantalizing hints of the delights within. The 
strains of a band and the laughter of dancers 
drifted forth from one; waiters with heavily laden 
trays passed in and out of another; around still a 
third swarmed children and one glimpsed through 
the open doorway a marionette show. Under a 
gay red umbrella at the edge of the garden women, 
fluttering like multi-hued butterflies, ladled lemon¬ 
ade from giant punch-bowls. 

Oh, a wonderland of myriad delights beckoned 
in every direction and it was only by dint of ex¬ 
treme severity that Mrs. McGregor succeeded in 
keeping her little army in formation and prevent¬ 
ing its neatly ranged ranks from becoming lost in 
the surrounding hubbub. 

u You’re not to stir a step from this spot until I 
tell you you may,” commanded she. “ The very 
notion of your all racing off to enjoy yourselves 


SOLUTION OF MANY MYSTERIES 251 

before you have so much as said a word of thanks 
to Mr. Coulter who asked you here! Where are 
your manners? Are you forgetting so quick that 
it is his wedding day? Aren’t you going to wish 
him joy as is proper to do when he has taken all 
this trouble to give you a good time?” 

Her tone was withering in its rebuke and as if 
hypnotized by its cadence the wriggling children 
thronging in her wake stood motionless. 

“ In my day folks were grateful for what was 
done for them and expected to say thank you to 
their elders. Now there seems to be no such thing 
as politeness among youngsters. But to-day, 
whether you will or no, before you do anything 
else we are going to hunt up Mr. John and his 
bride and every one of you is to thank him for 
asking you to his party. And Tim, you and Mary 
and Carl are to repeat the speech I taught you. I 
pray you’ve not forgotten it already. You hope 
he and his wife will have many days as happy as 
this one. Remember and don’t get mixed up and 
say the wrong thing.” 

With this final caution Mrs. McGregor wheeled 
about and marshalled the miniature procession fol¬ 
lowing her into a vast, rose-garlanded tent at the 
right of the entrance. Two aisles roped off with 
laurel divided it, and throngs of people were mov¬ 
ing down one of these and returning by the other. 
In the far distance one could see a canopy of green, 
a figure misty in white tulle, and a bevy of brides¬ 
maids in pink, blue, yellow, and lavender. 

“ This seems to be the right place,” whispered 


252 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

Mrs. McGregor. “ We’ll fall right in behind this 
man and woman. Now mind your manners, all 
of you. Poor though we are, we can be polite 
without it costing us a cent. Timmie, you keep 
close at my heels with Mary. I’ve got all I can 
do to handle the baby and Nell. Carl, see that 
you don’t squeeze Martin’s hand too tight and get 
him peevish. Take hold of him gently. And don’t 
one of you dare to push. We must expect to move 
along slowly and wait our turn. Yes, I know it’s 
hot. But there’ll be lemonade and ice cream by 
and by. I guess you can stand the heat for a little 
while. What is it, Tim? Your boots hurt? Non¬ 
sense! They’re the same boots you always wear, 
aren’t they? Were you racing round playing ball 
in them it’s little notice you’d be taking of them, 
I reckon. Don’t be silly and get sulky now or next 
time I shall leave you at home.” 

To an accompaniment of these and similar ad¬ 
monitions the McGregor host proceeded on its way 
along with the other guests. 

Then at last when the receiving party was well 
in sight and Mrs. McGregor and her family were 
making a decorous approach the anxious mother 
was horrified to see Carl, forgetful of all else, rush 
from the line and racing up to Mr. John Coulter, 
seize both his hands. 

“ Oh! ” cried the boy, in a voice so shrill with 
ecstasy that its accents penetrated to every corner 
of the great tent, “ Oh, Mr. Coulter, I never 
dreamed it was you! Why didn’t you tell me who 
you were? I’m so glad to see you again! I 



" I’ve hunted for you and your red car ever since.” 

Page 253. 




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SOLUTION OF MANY MYSTERIES 253 

thought I never would. I’ve hunted and hunted 
for you and your red car ever since.” 

Plainly Mr. John Coulter, instead of being of¬ 
fended by this unexpected onslaught, was delighted 
for he beamed down on the excited lad, shook both 
his hands heartily, and laughed so the ring of it 
echoed all about. 

“ So you didn’t guess the riddle, little chap,” 
Mrs. McGregor heard him say. “Well, I didn’t 
mean you should.” 

“ And to think it was you! ” Carl was still mur¬ 
muring, as if in a trance. “Just to think it was 
you! Of course you were the one who got Louise 
her new place.” 

“ Guilty.” 

“ Gee, but it was white of you! She’s right here 
behind my mother.” Then inspired by sudden un¬ 
derstanding he added, “ And the Christmas din¬ 
ners came from you, too.” 

“ Come, come, youngster, this is no moment to be 
confronting me with all my crimes,” the blushing 
bridegroom protested. “ Here’s Mrs. Coulter just 
married to me — what is she going to think if you 
tell her how many conspiracies I have been mixed 
up in? This, Marion, is one of my very good 
friends, Carl McGregor. His father was for many 
years in our mills and if I mistake not here is his 
whole family coming up to speak to us.” 

“ Indeed we are, sir,” declared Mrs. McGregor, 
making a quaint English curtsy, “ and it’s scandal¬ 
ized enough I am to see my boy here racing at you 
as if he was a wild beast and forgetting all the eti- 


254 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

quette I’ve taught him. He had a nice speech 
ready to say but where it is now heaven only 
knows! ” 

“ I’d far rather he said to me what he did,” as¬ 
serted Mr. Coulter. “You see, Carl and I are 
old friends.” 

“ I don’t see,” replied the mystified mother, “ but 
no doubt you are, since you tell me so. I myself 
had no idea the lad knew you from Adam.” 

“ And I hadn’t either, Mother. Gee, but it is 
rich! To think I went riding with you that day, 
Mr. Coulter, and speeled off all that guff, and you 
never so much as raised an eyelash! ” 

“ Carl! ” ejaculated his despairing parent. 

“ Well, I hope this is not to be the end of our 
acquaintance, youngster,” Mr. Coulter returned, 
passing over Mrs. McGregor’s rebuke. “ Come 
and see Mrs. Coulter and me some day. And re¬ 
member that if you ever wish to enter the mills I 
will make a place for you.” 

“That’s bully of you, sir! ” 

“ Carl! ” Mrs. McGregor was dumb with con¬ 
sternation. “ The very idea of your speaking to 
Mr. Coulter like that! ” declared she, when at last 
she could catch her breath. “ Come away before 
you say anything more to disgrace the family. 
There’s others waiting to give him their good 
wishes and you seem to have forgotten all about 
yours, although goodness knows you were drilled 
and drilled on the speech you were to make. Yes, 
Mrs. Coulter, these are my children — all six of 
them. The baby’s name? James Frederick, after 


SOLUTION OF MANY MYSTERIES 255 

his uncle. And this is Mary, and Timmie, and 
Martin, and Nell. The oldest ones had nice 
things ready to say to you but Carl has knocked 
’em clean out of their heads. I hope you’ll not lay 
it up against us. No, marm, this tall boy and girl 
don’t belong to me, but I’m that fond of ’em I wish 
they did. They are our neighbors, Hal and Louise 
Harling.” 

Instantly Mr. Coulter reached forward and 
greeted the young people. 

“ The new job is going well? ” he asked, address¬ 
ing Louise. 

“ Oh, I’m so happy in it, Mr. Coulter.” 

“ That’s good! And you, Harling?” 

“ I’m getting on splendidly, sir.” 

“ Excellent! There’ll be a raise coming to you 
next month — quite a substantial one. We’ve been 
looking you up.” 

“ Oh, sir, how can I — ” 

“ There, there! We mustn’t stop to talk about 
it now. If you must thank somebody for it thank 
this young scoundrel here. It was he put me up 
to it.” 

There was time for nothing further. Swept 
onward by crowds that surged behind, the 
McGregors, like chips on the crest of a mam¬ 
moth wave, were borne forward and out of the 
tent. 

In the open air Mrs. McGregor wiped her per¬ 
spiring brow. 

“Now,” began she, turning accusingly on her 
son, “ perhaps you will be so good as to tell us 


256 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

what all this is about. How came you to know Mr. 
John Coulter well enough to be treating him like 
a long-lost brother? And what had you to do 
with Hal and Louise and the Coulter mills? I 
feel as if I were going crazy! One minute you 
don’t even know Mr. Coulter by sight and the next 
he is sending us a Christmas dinner and you are 
fairly falling on his neck.” 

Carl shook with laughter. 

“ Oh, Mother, it’s all so rich — so perfectly 
corking!” he cried. “You couldn’t half appre¬ 
ciate it if I told you.” 

“ I could try,” came curtly from Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gregor. 

But her son did not heed her. 

“To think of that being Mr. John Coulter,” 
chuckled he. “ And, oh, the things I said to him! 
I tremble to recall them. I told him Corcoran 
jvas a low-down skunk, I know that. And I gushed 
on a lot about Hal and Louise. I only wish I 
could remember what I did say. Jove! He must 
have split his sides laughing.” 

“When? When did you do all this?” inter¬ 
rogated the lad’s mother impatiently. 

“ Oh, when was it? ” ruminated Carl, struggling 
to collect his scattered wits. “ It seems ages and 
ages ago that all that happened. It was before 
Christmas, I’m certain of that.” 

“ And you went riding with Mr. Coulter? I 
heard you saying something about it.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You actually went to ride with him? ” 


SOLUTION OF MANY MYSTERIES 257 

“ I sure did!” 

“Well, all I can say is I should like to know 
when all these miracles took place,” repeated 
Carl’s mother. “ Where was I, and why wasn’t I 
told? You might at least have mentioned it at 
home.” 

“ I know it, Ma,” apologized Carl with disarm¬ 
ing frankness. “ I did try twice to tell you but 
the chance never seemed to come right; and by 
and by it got to be so long ago that I forgot all 
about it.” 

“ Forgot you went motoring with Mr. John 
Coulter? ” Mrs. McGregor spoke with incredu¬ 
lity. 

“ You see I didn’t know at the time that it was 
Mr. John Coulter, Ma.” 

“ I don’t see! I don’t understand anything about 
it,” repeated the woman helplessly. 

“ Well, you will by and by. It is a long story — 
too long to tell now. When we get home you shall 
hear it from beginning to end. But now — Gee 
whizz! There goes Martin making for the pond! 
I’ll head him off.” 

Away went Carl across the velvet lawn and with 
an unsatisfied air Mrs. McGregor wheeled about 
to collect Nell and Tim, who were already tug¬ 
ging at her skirts. She felt as if the events of the 
past half-hour were a dream. Carl, her harum- 
scarum son, the catastrophe worker of the family, 
was the acknowledged friend of Mr. John Coulter, 
one of the richest and most revered citizens of 
Baileyville. And more than that he appeared to 


258 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

possess the influence to have men removed from 
their jobs and discharged employees reinstated in 
lost positions. He even had power to have peo¬ 
ple’s salaries raised. Would wonders never cease? 


CHAPTER XIX 


UNRAVELING THE SNARLS 

How late the McGregors sat up talking that 
night it would have been alarming to confess. It 
was so late that the streets became silent and de¬ 
serted and conversation had to be conducted in 
whispers lest it arouse the O’Dowds, Sullivans, and 
Murphys. 

And what tense, eager whispers they were! 

Mrs. McGregor, her bonnet still in her lap, sat 
on the edge of a chair too engrossed to so much 
as think of the shrimp pink tulle dress she had 
planned to finish before she went to bed that night; 
nor did she, in her usual methodical manner, take 
time to slip out of her best skirt or put away her 
company shoes and gloves. She was far too ex¬ 
cited for that. 

Happy, tumbled, and nodding the babies had 
been put to sleep and afterward their elders, joined 
by Hal and Louise Harling, huddled in the 
kitchen, closed the doors, and talked and talked. 
Every detail of Carl’s amazing story had to be 
told over and over again that his listeners might 
enjoy to the full the marvel and humor of each 
successive event. Everything was clear as crystal 
now—Corcoran’s transfer, Louise’s reinstate- 


26 o carl and the cotton gin 


ment, Hal’s increasing salary, the Christmas din¬ 
ners. Even the conundrum of the watch remained 
an enigma no longer. 

“ It was, of course, Mr. Coulter who told Cor¬ 
coran about your rescuing his baby,” Carl ex¬ 
plained to his chum. “ I remember that I hap¬ 
pened to mention the accident to him.” 

Hal nodded. 

“ But the thing I don’t understand,” he said with 
a puzzled air, “ is how you could go to that office 
looking for a job and never so much as suspect who 
Mr. Coulter was. There must have been signs 
up with the firm’s name on them.” 

“ I suppose there were,” Carl answered. “ I 
don’t know about that. You see, I was too rattled 
and wrought up to notice much of anything. Be¬ 
sides, I was some scared. It was such a swell joint 
and that bell-boy (or whatever you call him) was 
so lofty and elegant that it froze the blood in my 
veins. More than that I was crazy to get a posi¬ 
tion and was so darned afraid they wouldn’t take 
me that I wasn’t thinking of anything else.” 

“ You’re a bully little pal, Carl,” Hal remarked, 
placing an affectionate hand on the younger boy’s 
shoulder. 

“ Pooh! I did no more than you’d have done 
for me if I’d been in a hole,” replied Carl mod¬ 
estly. “ You’d move heaven and earth to help us 
if we needed you.” 

“ You’ve said it, youngster! ” 

“ Then what is there so remarkable in my try¬ 
ing to do the same for you and Louise? ” 


UNRAVELING THE SNARLS 261 

“ It was splendid of you, Carlie,” whispered 
Louise. 

“ Oh, I didn’t do much,” was the gruff retort. 
u As it happened, I didn’t really do anything. But 
I wanted to — you can bank on that.” 

“ Evidently you convinced Mr. Coulter of the 
sincerity of your good intentions,” grinned Hal. 

“ Mr. Coulter! Gee! Every time I think of 
him I have to laugh. Picture my having the nerve 
to go reforming his mill for him and complaining 
of his employees! And fancy me parading into 
his private office asking him for work! Had I 
known what I was doing I should have been petri¬ 
fied with fear.” Smothered laughter convulsed 
the boy’s frame. “ Well, as Ma says, ignorance is 
bliss and fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” 

“ I guess Mr. Coulter sized up the situation all 
right,” mused Hal. 

“ Oh, he knew; he understood the whole thing. 
He told me so to-day,” Carl responded quickly. 
“ He’s live wire enough not to let a joke slip past 
him. He had his fun out of the affair and don’t 
you think he didn’t. What’s more, he didn’t mean 
ever to let me find out what a boob I’d been. He 
was just going to keep the secret to himself. Then 
this wedding party came along and he happened 
to think we might like to come. So he took a 
chance and sent the bid.” 

“ And that explains why the invitation came to 
you,” reflected Mrs. McGregor. 

“ That’s it, Ma. You have your little son Carlie 
to thank for your card to the spree,” the lad re- 


262 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 


sponded impishly. “ I’ll be getting you into high 
society some day if you’re good.” 

“ If you don’t get us all into jail or some other 
place before then we’ll be lucky,” came brusquely 
from his mother. 

“Now isn’t that gratitude for you?” growled 
Carl with mock indignation. “ Here I take my 
mother and all her family to a perfectly good 
party and this is all the thanks I get for it.” 

“ Yes, this happened to be a perfectly good 
party,” agreed Mrs. McGregor mischievously. 
“ But it might have ended in some scrape or other 
and like as not it would another time. One never 
can be sure where your adventures will bring 
up.” 

“ Well, Ma, Mr. Coulter appreciates me if you 
don’t.” 

“Apparently he does — up to date. Just you 
take care that you go on deserving his good 
opinion.” 

“ I mean to,” Carl flashed. “ Say, folks, sha’n’t 
we have something to write Uncle Frederick now? 
I’ll bet it will take ten sheets of paper to retail 
the whole thing; and then he won’t really have 
any idea of what happened. None of you ever 
can. You just ought to have been there and seen 
the play.” 

“ It’s as good as a play—as good as any mov¬ 
ing picture, in my opinion,” Louise ventured. 

“ What wouldn’t I have given to be under the 
seat of that car and listened when you were laying 
out poor old Cork!” Hal ejaculated. 


UNRAVELING THE SNARLS 263 

“ I laid him fine and flat,” acknowledged Carl 
with candor. 

“ Events have proved you did. Poor Cork! 
Still, Corks float, you know, and he has. He isn’t 
dead yet by any means,” jested Hal. 11 In fact, he 
told me only a day or two ago that he liked his 
new job much better than he did the old one so I 
guess nobody need waste pity on him.” 

“ I’m afraid he wasn’t punished much, after 
all,” sniffed Mrs. McGregor. 

“ Oh, he’s had it borne in upon him that he was 
a brute, Ma; don’t you fret,” declared Carl. “ Mr. 
Coulter never does things by halves. When he 
starts in he finishes up a job in bang-up style. 
Corcoran’s learned his lesson; and if he has that 
is all that is necessary.” 

A clock struck softly. 

“ Hal Harling! Do you realize it is twelve 
o’clock?” Louise exclaimed in dismay. “We 
must go home this minute. The very idea of our 
staying here and keeping the McGregors up until 
this hour! I’d no idea it was so late. Why, you 
may be robbed of your precious Corcoran watch 
if you don’t hurry home out of the lonely streets. 
Good-night, everybody! And blessings on you, 
Carlie! You’ve been a trump. I’m going to be¬ 
gin to-morrow and work harder than ever for 
Mr. John Coulter.” 

“ Here’s to him! ” Carl began. But a restrain¬ 
ing hand was clapped over his mouth. 

“ Carl! Carl! For mercy’s sake, remember that 
it’s twelve o’clock and everybody’s abed and asleep. 


264 CARL AND THE COTTON GIN 

Don’t go cheering for Mr. Coulter now. You can 
go out in the field and do it to-morrow.” 

“ I’m afraid I’ll be too busy to-morrow.” 

“ And what’ll you be doing to-morrow, pray, 
that’s of so much importance? ” 

“ Why, I’ll have to be deciding whether I want 
to go to college, or go to sea with Uncle Frederick; 
or go into Mr. Coulter’s mills,” was the teasing 
answer. “ I seem to have three careers open to 
me. Maybe I’ll have to toss up a penny to find 
out which I’d better take. Will you lend me the 
penny, Ma? ” 

“ Indeed I won’t,” snapped his mother wrath- 
fully. “Three careers! Humph! Still I’m not 
saying that if you could go into the mills with Mr. 
Coulter to stand behind you you might not make 
your fortune. But there’s time enough to decide 
that later. We needn’t argue it at twelve o’clock 
at night.” 


FINIS 














































































